Far North TV hits the prime time.

From Prudhoe Bay to Petersburg, Alaskans are tuning in and turning on to today's television trends ... and the 49th state is a top TV attraction.

Television is a way of life in America. According to A.C. Nielson, a nationwide television ratings service, in 1992, 93.1 million households owned at least one set. That's 98 percent of the U.S. population.

Alaska is no exception. In fact, these days, television is big-time entertainment in Alaska -- but getting there hasn't been easy. Augie Hiebert, chairman and CEO of Northern Television Inc. (NTV) based in Anchorage, says that when its first station, Channel 11 KTVA in Anchorage, began broadcasting on Dec. 11, 1953, it was the beginning of an uphill battle to provide quality transmissions and timely programming to the Great Land.

"We started KTVA by selling company stock to the public for $125,000," says Hiebert. "That wouldn't even buy the basic equipment now. KTVA was a low-power operator covering only the Anchorage bowl and part of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. The DuMont Network, now long out of business, and NBC provided programming. But 16mm film had to come up to Alaska by air, so news programs may have been several weeks old. It wasn't until the late 1970s and early 1980s that things started to change."

TESTING TELEVISION TECHNOLOGY

When Anchorage's Channel 2 KFIA (now KTUU) first broadcast its signal in 1954, the picture was so lousy that viewers wondered if television would always be this bad. Broadcast pioneer Alvin Bramstedt Sr. and a group of investors bought Channel 2's parent company from a San Diego company for $250,000 in 1959, including a construction permit for a Fairbanks station, forming the state's second largest television conglomerate. New call letters identified Channel 2 as KENI.

The station's antenna sat on top of the 4th Avenue Theater in downtown Anchorage, which didn't give the station much range, says KTUU's present general manager Al Bramstedt Jr.

Turning to national networks like CBS, NBC and later ABC solved programming problems for Alaska's stations. Locally produced programs like KTVA's Norma Goodman talk show, popular movie reruns and syndicated sitcoms filled remaining scheduling gaps.

Bramstedt Sr., always looking for a way to improve broadcast reception, reached an agreement with a Seattle station in 1965 to tape the national news nightly and send it to Anchorage. And on June 18, 1966, Channel 2, an NBC-ABC affiliate, made history as the first television station in Alaska to broadcast in color.

Over the years, Alaska's television stations constantly reinvested to update their technological capabilities. By the 1980s, broadcasters were bringing television service to Alaska customers via satellite.

Bellevue, Wash.-based commercial and agricultural/broadcast firm Zaser-Longston (Z&L) bought Channel 2 in June 1981, because the firm could see that Alaska television flaws were correctable. Z&L knew the Last Frontier's television market potential made it a smart place to invest.

"New things became possible with a company like Zaser-Longston," says Bramstedt Jr. "They had enough foresight to understand that investing in a television station meant the investment of a lot of time and money. They were able to put together plans for positive financial solutions, making it possible to go ahead with necessary changes and improvements. When Zaser-Longston took over in 1981, there was sometimes a three-week delay on some of our programming. Today, programming broadcasts by satellite may only be delayed by time zone adjustments."

A KEEN EYE ON COMPETITION

Fairbanks, Alaska's only other competitive broadcast market, added television coverage when Hiebert's NTV station KTVF debuted on Feb. 17, 1955. In 1967, KTVF survived the flood that poured into downtown Fairbanks, totally destroying the station's operations and causing a four-month hiatus for rebuilding and upgrading television service to color.

Sally Crawford, general sales manager at KTVF, claims that today's Fairbanks market differs from most urban markets due to the city's diverse commercial station arrangements. KATN maintains network affiliations with ABC and NBC, KTVF has CBS and NBC, the Fox network broadcasts as Channel 7, and a religious channel based in North Pole maintains a station called KJNP. In addition, cable penetrates only 34 percent of Fairbanks' households, the lowest figure nationwide, in contrast to Anchorage's 51 percent market share.

But because Fairbanks is one of the remaining television markets where cable doesn't make a heavy impact on network audiences, attracting advertisers was never a problem for local television stations. Local sales is the top revenue earner at KTVF, but the station also carries regional (Anchorage) and national advertising.

Augie Hiebert reports that despite the fact that NTV's Fairbanks station is profitable, the only local programming KTVF produces are daily newscasts and a show called "Good Morning Fairbanks." In Fairbanks, he says, news programs are local revenue leaders, just like they are in Anchorage.

KTUU's Bramstedt Jr. says that the Anchorage station's smartest move was to expand local news coverage to one hour. February 1994 Nielson ratings indicated that Channel 2 news, broadcast in three daily time spots, reached 52 percent of Anchorage households. KTUU gets almost 42 percent of the city's early news viewers, compared with about 24 percent for KTVA and nearly 8 percent who tune into Channel 13 KIMO's news.

"Our answer for stability is a strong news program," says Bramstedt Jr. "Local programming with that quality, plus coverage of the Iditarod, local elections and charity-related telethon broadcasts can make a station popular to Alaskans. Viewers here want to watch an intelligently produced show. We try to answer that need with a top-notch television news staff and accurate reporting."

Steve MacDonald, news director at KTVA since 1986, says Alaskans are highly intelligent people who stay on top of current issues. He claims that newscasts in Anchorage are more fundamentally sound than most other cities' local news productions. Sensationalism, prevalent in many Lower 48 newscasts, is not a problem here, adds MacDonald.

KTVA shows local news six nights a week, a half-hour after Channel 13's (KIMO) local report and right before KTUU's news hour. With a staff of 16, including four weekday anchors, Channel 11's news covers events in Anchorage, Southcentral and rural Alaska.

Television news was in its infancy when MacDonald began his news career at NTV. Back then, the newscasts were only an electronic regurgitation of the daily newspapers.

"Back in the 1980s we operated with a staff of four for both TV and radio news," MacDonald says. "But as the need for a good local newscast increased, the news staff grew and our broadcast equipment got better. People started to take us more seriously. Credibility is the most important thing to viewers and advertisers."

SELLING THE STATION

As the sole commercial broadcaster in Juneau, Channel 8 KJUD has been the only television station offering local advertising for the past 11 years. And as a two-network affiliate (ABC and NBC), KJUD can choose its programming in relation to viewer choice and program ratings.

KJUD general manager Elizabeth Arnett says network programming is received via satellite and taped for playback. The station receives primetime shows and network broadcast specials free of charge in return for market exposure and commercial air play. In fact, she adds, ABC pays the station a small monthly stipend for carrying network programs. This type of dual-network arrangement gives Channel 8, whose signal covers only Juneau, crucial positioning for local advertisers.

"The majority of our advertisers are Juneau-area businesses," Arnett says. "Obtaining advertising in a small market has its challenges, but as the only local network-affiliated broadcast station, we have a comfortable place in this market."

KTVF Fairbanks also commands a major portion of that city's viewers. According to Sally Crawford, it's unusual for a CBS station like KTVF to reach 94 percent of a young market (82 percent of Fairbanksans are under age 50), dominated by a 52 percent male population. She says Channel 11's success is a result of long-term planning and professional execution of several factors, like local news, strong syndicated programming, promotional campaigns and heavy community involvement.

Beginning as an independent local station with a fuzzy picture in 1984, Channel 4 KTBY in Anchorage has emerged as a highly successful business venture owned and operated by Ron Bradley and KTBY Inc. After several years as an independent, KTBY became a part of the Fox program network, broadcasting a line-up of fledgling sitcoms aimed at younger viewers searching for an alternative to existing networks.

"Anchorage didn't have heavy cable penetration at that time," says KTBY station manager Sean Bradley. "When we expanded to 19 hours of kids' shows, Monday to Friday, we filled a niche that the Anchorage market lacked. During that time of the day and increasingly at night, we carry a good part of the city's viewers. Local and national advertisers see that the station is an effective means of advertisement."

REACHING UNUSUAL MARKETS

Broadcasting to a market as sparsely populated as the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta requires Bethel television station KYUK, the only broadcast station in rural Alaska, to play host to both public and commercial programming. Though KYUK currently broadcasts few commercial programs, it is the only public station in the country allowed by the FCC to run commercials.

KYUK staff member Rhonda McBride says that with $50,000 in state and federal money "greasing the wheels," KYUK became Alaska's first Native-owned-and-operated station. Licensed under corporate handle Bethel Broadcasting Inc., it was also the first public television station funded under the Alaska Education Broadcast Commission in 1972.

"Eighty-five percent of the KYUK audience is Yupik Eskimo," says station manager John McDonald. "Television broadcasts are bilingual. Local programming consists of a weekly magazine program called 'Delta Digest' and hourly news updates produced in both English and Yupik. The production department also produces many types of training tapes and works with the Distance Delivery Consortium providing in-service training to teachers, remote training for the National Guard and health aid training."

McDonald adds that it costs over $1 million a year to run KYUK. Purchasing programming makes up the largest part of the station's budget. He says national PBS programming is expensive, about $320,000 for a member operator, and that it isn't cheap to create local features. As state grants decrease, Bethel Broadcasting has become more dependent upon station membership, program underwriting and gaming income.

KYUK TV got nearly $50,000 from last year's underwriting campaign and membership support drives. Weekly programs cost sponsors $1,000 a year to support, but the local market size makes it difficult to raise money to replace expected cuts in state funding.

RATNET, state-funded satellite programming for rural Alaska, connects isolated villages across the Interior and coastal regions with regular television transmissions contributed by public and private broadcast producers in Fairbanks and Anchorage.

"Broadcasting to rural areas would be impossible without the RATNET system," says Anchorage public television station Channel 7 KAKM general manager Dean Hoke. "It's a situation that's totally unique to Alaska. But even with the important role the service plays, they are constantly worried about funding cuts from the state. RATNET is just limping along right now. There's a rumor around that its technical operations may be turned over to a private company."

CRAFTY CABLING VENTURES

Likewise, cable television systems in Alaska rely on crafty business maneuvers to make profits. The Alaskan Cable Network (ACN), purchased by a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based company from McCaw Communications, provides cable service to communities as widespread as Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Fairbanks, North Pole, Fort Greely, Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base. The company owned cable franchises in 21 states, serving nearly 700,000 viewers until 1989, when all of the cable companies were sold, with the exception of Alaska's systems, which serve 26,000 subscribers.

Combined, ACN's Alaska systems operate with a budget totaling over $6 million, 20 percent paid for by programming brought in through satellite transmission.

Austin, Texas-based Prime Cable entered Alaska's cable market in July 1989 when it acquired Anchorage's cable system from Sonic Communications. Aside from owning systems in Austin, Las Vegas, Houston, Chicago and Anchorage, Prime Cable runs cable systems in Kenai/Soldotna and Bethel. In Alaska, Prime Cable sends pay-television service to 59,000 subscribers and broadcasts all local stations except the home shopping service on Channel 33.

Prime Cable also offers educational broadcasts through the University of Alaska, which allow subscribers to take university courses at home.

"Distance education is especially important to Bush communities far from any university campuses," says Prime Cable's Alaska general manager Marty Robinson. "This kind of educational opportunity could only be effective through cable. It makes taking classes more convenient for those with a busy schedule."

ALASKA TACKLES PRIME TIME

Not only are Alaska's residents watching national television, but these days, they can see themselves on national broadcasts while the rest of the country looks on.

"Television has had a major impact on Alaska's tourism industry," says Tina Lindgren of the Alaska Tourism Marketing Council. "Because the state has lots of scenic beauty and interest is high, a visual medium can project an effective state advertising campaign."

CBS cashed in on Alaska's popularity with its weekly prime-time hit "Northern Exposure," a slightly exaggerated parody of life in the 49th state. Lindgren says that because "Northern Exposure" ratings are high (usually in the nation's top 20), there must be some impact on tourism. "The show makes people curious about what Alaska is actually like, so they want to come up and find out," she says.

The nation's top morning show, ABC's "Good Morning America," broadcasting by remote from several Alaska locations in May, found that interest in "the real Alaska" runs high in the Lower 48. For one week, as ABC's crews taped in Juneau, Anchorage, Girdwood and other Alaska locations, rating points for the show rose between five and six points each day. Estimates by "Good Morning America" staff say about 4.6 million households watched the Alaska series.

Jeanie Greene, founder, producer and host of "Heartbeat Alaska" and "One Sky," the country's only news and information programming produced by Native Americans, began broadcasting in October 1992. Her original show, "Northern Lives," was shown throughout Canada, Greenland and every village and city in Alaska three times a week.

"We started the show because of the demand from rural people and Natives in Anchorage," says Greene. "The show was carried by RATNET to the villages and by two stations locally in Anchorage. Now, people are interested in hearing about issues from a Native perspective. Soon we'll be able to spread that interest to over 300 stations through the Public Broadcasting Network."

The business community has noticed the popularity "Heartbeat Alaska" achieved in the last few years. Investors tell Greene they are interested in putting money into her production company, One Sky Productions, because they see potential for national growth.

"What's happening here is amazing," Greene says. "People Outside are starting to see what's coming out of this small studio. Through our loyal viewers and all of the national articles written about the show, there's a phenomenon happening here. The press we've gotten is perpetuating more press coverage. Alaska and its Native culture are important to its people, and this is a trend beginning nationwide."

You might say Alaska has hit television's prime time.