Like eight-track, cassette tapes and VCRs, cable TV will soon be a piece of entertainment nostalgia — in Alaska anyway.
GCI announced a year ago that it would cease providing cable television service, and has introduced its streaming app, Yukon TV, to replace it.
The company had set Dec. 31 as the deadline for customers to turn in their cable boxes and sign up for the new service, but later extended the deadline to March 31 — though fewer channels will be available on cable as the company transitions its service.
“The whole industry is moving toward streaming services. That’s no mystery,” said Heather Handyside, vice president of corporate communications for GCI in Anchorage. “Anyone who watches content is more and more inclined to watch on a streaming service.”
Handyside said there are two main reasons the communications provider is doing away with cable, one of which “is to meet the needs of customers.”
The second has more to do with evolving technology. Cable TV boxes just aren’t produced like they once were. And with older models beginning to fail, replacing them might not be as easy as it once was.
“It’s making it very difficult to get set-top boxes,” Handyside said. “There are supply chain issues right now, but beyond that, it’s not something that’s being produced in large quantities.” Though GCI might be a big corporation in Alaska — the largest cable TV provider in the state — she said it’s a relatively small player in the global marketplace, making it difficult to procure equipment at a reasonable price.
Still, that’s little solace to customers who might not understand how technology works.
“The elderly up here, they are just not tech savvy,” said Ethel Dando, manager of the Wrangell Senior Apartments. “Everything about this is confusing. If the internet goes down, you don’t have (TV). Before, even if they don’t have internet, they still had cable. This whole streaming thing is just way over their heads.”
People need to have an email address to sign up for streaming services, which, she estimates, 80% of her tenants don’t.
Nell Churchill, who has been a GCI customer off and on since the company first started offering cable TV, said she had to opt for Yukon TV when she returned to Wrangell in August. It was a trying experience.
“You have to download an app on your phone, and then it goes to your TV somehow,” she said. “Then, I’d be sitting here watching, and if I got up and left, the room for a moment, it would log itself out.”
She contacted tech support and, after two hours on the phone, she eventually got the problem fixed.
“For elders, like if my dad was sitting here watching TV, he would be without TV,” Churchill said.
Dando said the seniors apartment complex offered basic cable to its tenants who range in age from their late 60s to early 80s. Cable television was cheap enough that the complex could offer it, but the streaming service is too expensive.
“It was way too expensive, beyond what we could offer to tenants,” she said. “It was probably 10 times more expensive, and that was just offering them internet. That wasn’t even getting Yukon TV on top of that.”
Handyside said, “The price for Yukon TV is exactly the same as cable service.” She added that seniors who have concerns about cost can contact CGI for assistance, but did not say if that included senior discounts.
Yukon TV’s base “AK Core TV” level is $14.99 per month. It includes about 30 channels, of which almost half are shopping networks or public television channels. The next level, “Plus,” is $109.99 per month, similar to current cable TV charges. It comes with 100 channels. The third level, “Total,” is $129.99 per month and includes 150 channels.
Users will need an internet connection through GCI, which is a separate fee ranging from $79.99 per month to $179.99 per month. However, any channels streamed through the Yukon TV app won’t be subjected to overage fees for internet use. If other apps are used, such as Hulu, Netflix or Disney+, and customers don’t have an unlimited data plan, they could still face overage fees.
“Some apps will gobble up their data,” Dando said. “But this Yukon thing, they’ve worked around that, which is good because that would just be another thing to confuse them.” She said tenants who were streaming without the Yukon TV app would watch a movie on another app, “and their data is all gone.”
And none of the monthly fees include the cost of one of the streaming platforms users will need to access the Yukon TV app, such as Apple TV, or iPads and iPhones running iOS 11.0 and higher, the Amazon Fire Cube 4K or Fire Stick 4K, Android TV 5.0 and higher, or Google’s Chromecast with Google TV.
Handyside said GCI is trying to make the switch easier for those who might be tech-challenged by providing online how-to videos, a booklet to walk users through setup and use, webinars, in-store tutorials, appointments for in-home setup and instruction and a 1-800 number. “We’re full service in that way,” she said.
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