“The Walking Dead” may be dead walking.
Most Alaskans may lose access to the most popular scripted TV series in the U.S. if negotiations between the National Cable Television Cooperative and AMC Networks don’t result in an agreement before Jan. 1. GCI and more than 750 other cable networks — including Ketchikan’s KPU and MTA in the Mat-Su — negotiate collectively through the NCTC.
In an email Monday to its customers, GCI said it “will no longer carry AMC Networks or Univision in the coming year because of substantial price increases imposed by these networks.”
Speaking by phone Tuesday, GCI spokeswoman Heather Handyside said while it’s possible for the NCTC and AMC to reach an agreement before the end-of-the-year deadline, it doesn’t appear likely.
“We don’t see any agreement right now,” she said.
At issue are the carriage fees — money paid by cable companies to TV channels for the right to broadcast their programming. Popular channels tend to charge more. The most expensive, ESPN, charges $5.54 per subscriber, according to a 2014 analysis by consulting firm SNL Kagan. Those fees are charged whether the subscriber watches the channel or not. They’re a big part of every cable bill.
According to GCI, AMC is seeking “an almost 200 percent cost increase for all the network’s channels as a condition of carrying AMC.”
“I think any business, if they saw a 200 percent cost increase in a product, would have to consider whether they could continue,” Handyside said.
GCI declined to release exact dollar figures, but Shenandoah Telecommunications Company, a fellow member of the NCTC, said in a statement that it expects it would have to pay $1.4 million per year to AMC, compared to the roughly $500,000 it pays now. Shentel has 60,000 customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland; GCI has 110,000, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings and company figures.
In addition to seeking more money per customer, AMC Networks is asking NCTC members to pay a fee for each of the network’s subscribers, rather than each of the channel’s subscribers. NCTC CEO Rich Fickle released that information earlier this month in a conference call with the Federal Communications Commission, saying that it seems to be a move to force AMC onto the basic cable package.
Right now, GCI has AMC on its “second tier” of channels, those added after a basic cable package but before premium channels like HBO or Cinemax.
Handyside said about 60,000 of GCI’s 110,000 cable TV customers have service that includes AMC.
In recent years, AMC has invested large sums in original programming, producing accclaimed TV series including “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” and “The Walking Dead.” A recent Wall Street Journal article speculated that AMC’s demands could be a result of that increased spending and stature.
If the NCTC (and by extension GCI) reach a deal that keeps the channel, GCI doesn’t yet know how much more customers would be asked to pay.
Conversely, if the channel is dropped at the end of the year, customers will not see a break on their TV bills.
“GCI does not determine rates by individual channel,” Handyside wrote in an email.
If AMC disappears from the GCI TV lineup, fans of “The Walking Dead” may turn to online streaming services when the sixth season of the show resumes in February. GCI’s VUDU application, accessed through its TiVo service, offers a simple way to get “The Walking Dead.”
There’s a significant drawback to that approach. GCI’s TiVo service and other Internet streaming video applications consume bandwidth, and GCI Internet plans only allow a certain amount each month. Use more than the cap? Pay overage charges.
GCI’s basic Internet plan includes 40 Gigabytes of data per month. An episode of “The Walking Dead,” according to GCI-provided figures, would consume 618 megabytes or 1.5 Gigabytes (in high-definition). Watching all three of the February-scheduled episodes would consume more than 10 percent of an entire month’s Internet allotment.
