Students checking out campus cable won’t miss the latest on “Trading Spaces” or professional wrestling.

Housing and Residence Life added a quartet of television channels to campus cable last month. The four include Spike TV, the Disney Channel, American Movie Classics and The Learning Channel.

Brian Kuster, HRL director, said the final two, TLC and AMC, were added two weeks ago.

The channels were chosen based on their costs and a survey conducted by the Residence Hall Association last semester, Kuster said.

Holly Pelt, a senior from Lebanon, Tenn., said she watches programs on almost all of the new channels.

“I like them because I like to watch TLC and I love the Disney Channel,” she said.

Pelt said she enjoys watching classic cartoons on Disney and the “Wedding Story” program on TLC.

Jerry Barnaby, director of educational telecommunications, said each new channel costs an average of 20 cents per outlet each month.

There are more than 2,400 outlets on campus, HRL assistant director Jim Schlingsog said.

Housing officials could not say what will be the exact cost of the channels, which are paid for through student housing fees, Kuster said.

Smiths Grove junior Scott Jaggers said he likes the “A-Team” on Spike TV, but usually doesn’t watch television until 11p.m.

“Just as long as they keep ESPN on, I’m happy,” Jaggers said.

Some students would prefer the addition of other channels.

“I’d rather have like an HBO or something like that,” Bowling Green freshman Jennifer Kennedy said.

Barnaby said movie channels such as HBO and Showtime are more expensive.

HBO costs about $5 per outlet per month, Kuster said.

Right now, two vendors – Insight Communications and Campus Televideo – provide channels to Western, Barnaby said.

New equipment was needed to accommodate the new channels, said Erik Costa, educational telecommunications cable technician. Receivers were installed to get the signals for the channels and modulators were necessary to convert the incoming signals into the channel numbers in the dorms.

Kuster said he would like to add more channels, such as Home and Garden Television, in the future.

“As some channels become more popular, those are the channels we look for,” he said.

HRL tries to add channels about once a year, Kuster said.

He said if students are not pleased with the selection of channels offered, they should voice their opinions with RHA, their hall government or HRL.

“We love to hear from them,” Kuster said.

Reach Ashlee Clark [email protected].