Miscellaneous
Broadcasters with operations in Alaska continued to spar over a proposed deal that would give General Communications, Inc, (GCI) control of a full power station in Anchorage and low-power stations in Sitka and Juneau. Schurz’s Northern Lights Media, Vision Alaska,…
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Coastal Television Broadcasting and Ketchikan TV responded Friday to GCI’s opposition to their petition to deny the transaction. “GCI’s Opposition offers little substantive response -- most tellingly -- does not dispute the statements of GCI corporate officials that were the foundation of the Petition to Deny,” they said. GCI’s opposition said the broadcasters petition to deny spelled out a “doomsday scenario” where GCI would hold a monopoly “over all information in Alaska.” GCI also took issue with the broadcasters arguments that the FCC should treat the transaction similarly to how it treated Comcast’s acquisition of NBCUniversal. “The true reason for the Petitions apocalyptic rhetoric is clear,” GCI said in its opposition. “GCI’s history in Alaska suggests that it has the wherewithal to disrupt the incumbent Petitioners’ tidy regional dominance in which they provide minimal or nonexistent local programming, but still collect significant advertising revenues because of a lack of competition,” GCI’s opposition said. In their response filed Friday, the broadcasters said most of the facts they raised in their initial petition remain unanswered or have been conceded by GCI to be true. “These responses are entirely inadequate and the Commission cannot grant these applications on this record,” they said.