This day in history: New-to-Spokane cable TV already weighing price increases. Chronicle launches new advice column

Mon., April 27, 2026

Spokane City Council delayed a decision that would increase cable TV rates if OK'd by council members. (Spokane Daily Chronicle Archives)

By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

From 1976: Spokane did not yet have cable TV, but a soon-to-be familiar problem – cable TV price increases – was already making the news.

Cox Cable TV was selected to launch cable TV in Spokane later in the year, yet the company was already asking the Spokane City Council for a price increase.

They asked for the connections fee to be raised from $9.95 to $14.95, and the monthly service charge to be raised from $5.95 to $7.95. They were also asking for an increase in “incidental” charges.

Spokane City Council member Wayne Guthrie argued this increase would be “more than what’s necessary” for the company to make a reasonable profit. The council decided to push the decision back a week while it studied the situation.

From 1926: The Spokane Chronicle launched a new advice column by Dorothy Dix, “Expert on Problems of Heart and Home.” The Chronicle editors called her “a motherly soul, who has helped a girl to find the answer to personal problems.”

In her inaugural column, a reader asked Dix if “it is right for a working girl to accept a coat as a present from her employer?”

Dix’s answer: “A deep, dark suspicion would attach to such a gift, and nobody would believe that such a present was innocently given or innocently received.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1956: Professional boxer Rocky Marciano retires at 32 years old.

1986: Soviet officials order the evacuation of Pripyat, Ukraine, a city of about 50,000 residents 2 miles from the Chernobyl disaster site.

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