Our contract with Vision Alaska and Coastal Television expired at the beginning of 2021, and we have been negotiating with them to secure reasonable terms to continue to offer their channels to GCI customers. We have now negotiated terms at a price that does not increase your current monthly bill.

Each year, GCI negotiates numerous contracts with programmers so that we can provide our customers with access to the television shows, movies, and sports they love. GCI pays a fee for every channel we carry, and every year, those fees increase. GCI successfully completes negotiations for many networks each year and tries to negotiate reasonable rates that help keep costs low for customers, but sometimes programmers propose costs that are unrealistically high. Another channel blackout could occur in those cases when GCI cannot negotiate a more reasonable rate and an agreed upon rate is not reached. However, these blackouts are rare; prior to this, it had been years since we experienced a channel blackout, and this one lasted much longer than any other.

No, we were able to agree to a contract price that will not increase your current monthly bill.

No, this increase was not directly related to the negotiations with Vision and Coastal Television. In fact, the rate increase took place before we came to a resolution with this programmer and was the result of many contract negotiations.

Here’s how it works: Before we can bring you any of the content you love, we negotiate contracts for the 300+ channels we offer, and nearly all of those contracts come with annual price increases by the programmer. We do our best to absorb the effects of these recurring increases but over time, they reach a level that requires us to revise TV prices—a result of many contracts, not just one. These increases by programmers are also why we take our duty of negotiating a fair price on your behalf so seriously.