KUAC-TV Fairbanks is quitting the AlaskaOne consortium, effective July 1, 2012. The Fairbanks station’s management disapproved of the decision by other members to move the centralized feed from KUAC to KAKM-TV Anchorage.
At a recent meeting of the Alaska Public Broadcasting Service (APBS), the corporate entity for the AlaskaOne consortium, members voted to move the public television centralized feed of AlaskaOne for to Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc., the operator of KAKM. Effective July 1 the Anchorage station will distribute programming to KTOO-TV Juneau and KYUK-TV Bethel – but not to KUAC, which will exit the AlaskaOne consortium. KUAC General Manager Keith Martin cast the lone dissenting vote against the change.
“The withdrawal from AlaskaOne will not change the television programming for residents of the Interior who receive their public television service from KUAC in Fairbanks or its translator communities of Healy, Delta, and Nenana. What will change, effective July 1, 2012, is the public television service’s identity – from AlaskaOne back to the original KUAC TV. The mission and quality of programming will stay the same,” KUAC said in announcing that it will leave the consortium. The station cited the new arrangement’s “potential to cause financial harm to KUAC.”
AlaskaOne was created in 1995 to combine the resources of KUAC, KTOO and KYUK and form a public TV network serving all of Alaska outside the Anchorage area. Until now the three stations have produced programming collaboratively and conducted fundraising efforts in a partnership, with member support going directly to the station in the viewer’s home region as determined by zip code.
