The Nushagak Cooperative will end all cable TV services in April

Dillingham’s energy utility is discontinuing all cable television services. The Nushagak Cooperative announced the cancellation on its social media and by email last week, saying that the decision comes amidst rising costs and aging equipment. The cooperative will stop providing the service on April 15.

Dennis Payne, the cooperative’s telecom operations manager, said Nushagak has roughly two hundred cable subscribers who will lose the service – fewer people subscribing to cable than in the past.

“We’ve had a reduction in the number of people who are subscribing to the video service,” he said. “It’s causing it to be a lost proposition which means our members are losing money as well. It doesn’t make sense for us to continue to pour money into a product that’s losing money.”

Payne said Nushagak’s April 15 cancellation deadline comes as the cooperative’s contract with its content provider ends.

Nationwide, the number of cable and broadcast viewers has decreased as streaming services grow in popularity according to media survey company Nielson. Some telecommunications companies in Alaska have started phasing out cable service offerings. In 2021, GCI announced it would stop providing cable to some urban areas like Anchorage. Last year, Ketchikan’s utility company announced it would no longer provide the service come September 2024.

Payne said the end of cable service will free up bandwidth for the utility, and that cooperative members can subscribe to streaming services that offer Live TV features.

Streaming services require certain download speeds to work. Many services, like Netflix, need an internet download speed of between 3 and 5 megabits per second to stream content. To stream videos in high definition can require up to 25 megabits per second.

Nushagak’s unlimited internet plan offers 6 megabits per second of download capacity.

Payne said cable TV subscribers can return their equipment to Nushagak’s office in Dillingham, or can call Nushagak for a service technician to pick it up. Kdlg