Dawson City, Yukon, ends 4-decade experiment with publicly owned TV

Dawson City TV is unique in the Yukon as a cable television service owned by the municipal government. But in the end, it fell victim to the same market forces roiling conventional broadcasters everywhere. 

The town plans to shut down the service by year's end, citing rising operating costs and a dwindling subscriber base.

Dave Henderson, the town's chief administrative officer, said the appeal of so-called over-the-top streaming services like Netflix and Crave TV made a local cable system unsustainable.

"It's not a light decision," he said. "It's important to many people in the community. But at the same time, the municipality has to focus on core municipal services, and generally the municipalities try not to provide services that are available commercially."

Henderson said the service was losing between $30,000 and $40,000 per year and that deficit has to be made up with tax hikes or service cuts. The town also had to put $100,000 into capital upgrades for the system last year, he said, and with just 130 subscribers remaining, the writing was on the wall.

Dawson City TV has a near-mythical origin story. It began as a (probably illegal) way to distribute satellite TV signals locally. Then-mayor Peter Jenkins signed up for accounts using the names of long-dead Gold Rush pioneers and distributed the programming for free. 

Town council legitimised the service in the late 1990s and added a digital version of the service in 2012, ahead of the planned nationwide shutdown of analog over-the-air TV broadcasting.

The town explored selling off the service or turning it into a locally run media outlet, much like CFYT, the local radio station, or the Klondike Sun newspaper. But a modern, digital television service is more complex to run than print or community radio.

"There is a lot of different pieces of assets, there's billing models," Henderson said. "It's a little more complicated [and] takes some substantial administration."

Still, the old system has its fans. Local motel owner Terrie Turai said alternatives to town ownership could work if given the chance. And, she said, even if Dawson City TV must indeed shut down, New Year's Eve is a terrible time to pull the plug.

"I understand we need to move forward with the times," she said. "But a lot of people are thinking about people that live alone and elders and people like that, that's all they have and you're going to stop this service on Dec. 31, right before the one of the biggest depression months is about to start."