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Anchorage Daily News

Aug. 26--The Federal Communications Commission has ordered satellite TV providers Dish Network and DirecTV to make Alaska's local network-affiliated channels available to their subscribers throughout the state by early December.

Dish Network two years ago started beaming local Anchorage stations to its customers in and around the city. But they're currently the only ones getting local Alaska channels by satellite.

Both Dish and DirecTV offer network-affiliated channels from the Lower 48 to some of their subscribers. Starting Dec. 8, both are required to make local channels available to all their customers under an order the FCC issued this week.

Television stations across the nation, including in Alaska, are converting to digital broadcasting, which will enable them to transmit crisp, high-definition programming or "multicast" several channels' worth of programs over a single digital TV signal.

The FCC's Dec. 8 deadline applies to the Alaska channels' regular over-the-air signals. It also says the satellite TV service providers are required to carry local stations' digital signals by June 2007.

The mandate is part of a broader renewal of the rules governing satellite TV providers and applies to Hawaii as well.

In its order, the FCC noted that the vast distances separating many of Alaska's communities from TV stations in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau present a unique challenge for Alaskans seeking a range of television programming, especially over-the-air broadcasting.

Dish Network subscribers in and around Fairbanks and Juneau will have to buy a second dish if they want to receive the local stations from those cities, said Chuck Schuman, vice president of Microcom, one of the state's largest Dish Network retailers.

The local channels will be beamed from a different satellite, one farther east and lower in the sky than the one that provides the bulk of Dish Network's Alaska programming, Schuman said.

Subscribers there who want to sign up for local stations will have to pay for the dish, about $100, plus $4.99 a month for the extra channels, Schuman said.

Meanwhile, DirecTV subscribers will need to replace their satellite dishes and the set-top boxes that process the signal to receive local channels, said Robert Mercer, a spokesman for the El Segundo, Calif.-based company.

However, DirecTV will provide that equipment free, Mercer said.

Customers should receive a postcard in the mail in the next couple of months telling them about the upcoming availability of local channels and how to sign up. The local channels will cost an extra $3 a month for the package, Mercer said.

General Communication Inc., the state's dominant cable TV provider, lost thousands of customers after Dish Network introduced local channels in the Anchorage area two years ago. Satellite providers' lack of local channels had been a long-standing competitive advantage for Anchorage-based GCI, which also provides telephone service.

David Morris, a GCI spokesman, said the company already sends Anchorage's local channels 2, 4, 5, 11 and 13 to its customers throughout the state, and because of the satellite TV competition it has discounted the price of cable TV when customers buy it as part of a package with telephone or Internet service.

That has helped stem the tide of customers flowing away from cable to satellite, he said.

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