Ketchikan's KPU local television goes national: diversification key to electric, water, and telecom utility success.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Telecom & Technology

Aboard F/V Aleutian Ballad, Ketchikan Public Utilities' Local TV cameraman Jacob Schwartz-- taking a break from shooting--gets to pick among chunks of king crab so large they're jokingly being dubbed "Alaskan hot dogs." The Aleutian Ballad is a former Bering Sea crabbing vessel featured on early seasons of "The Deadliest Catch." The boat has been retrofitted to carry tourists to the calmer crabbing grounds off Annette Island in Southeast Alaska. There, the crew will drop some pots and haul some up, just like in the show.

The Aleutian Ballad is a popular attraction with tourists visiting Alaska's First City, but Schwartz's main focus was shooting footage for an episode of "Celebrity Chef"--a show on KPU Local TV about Ketchikan cooks and their signature dishes.

Besides king crab boiled in seawater and shrimp stewed in spices, this episode of "Celebrity Chef" included brie-and-crab-filled croissants, fashioned into the body and arms of a crab. Schwartz is local, too, and graduated from Ketchikan FTigh School in 2001. He is not unfamiliar with Southeast Alaska's bountiful seafood, but even he was impressed.

"[And] I've done every single fun thing to do in Ketchikan," Schwartz says.

KPU Local TV airs about ten locally-produced episodic shows like "Celebrity Chef." There's also plenty of more meat-and-potatoes local access television fare such as school music concerts, city council meetings, and sporting events. But KPU Local TV's producers sometimes give these offerings a new spin by shooting with multiple cameras and live-streaming some sports games on the Internet or by shooting aerials from a GoPro camera attached to the skid of a helicopter. It's local TV on steroids.

Stars are Born

Michelle O'Brien is both the producer and host of many of KPU Local TV's episodic shows. After years in advertising and sales, she came to KPU five years ago from Tallahassee, Florida, to sell phone systems--one of a new team brought in to KPU to revitalize the company's sales and marketing division. Ketchikan Public Utilities is city-owned and provides electrical service, water, and telecommunications services. The Telecommunications Division provides television, Internet, and voice services via fiber-to-the-home--connecting Ketchikan customer's homes to the Seattle "cloud" via seven hundred miles of KPU-owned terrestrial and undersea fiber optic cable.

"In 2009, KPU Telecommunications was struggling," O'Brien says. "Our job was to build a sales-focused...