Cablefax The Magazine - July 2014 - 21

INDEPENDENT STRATEGIC THINKER OF THE YEAR
Ron Duncan
GCI
There's much to admire about Ron Duncan; we'll begin with
his candor.
Our Independent Strategic Thinker of the Year could have
told us about how he and his partners literally built cable in
Alaska from the ground up into the powerhouse known as
GCI. Or how GCI recently bought a half-dozen local broadcast
channels and subsequently provided Alaskans with their
fi rst taste of local content in HD. He might have mentioned
the recent merging of GCI's wireless unit with another local
wireless entity so the two could realize economies of scale
and better compete against AT&T, which is in Alaska presently,
and Verizon, which is about to fl ip the switch there.
Any of those accomplishments would have nicely laid the
foundation for Duncan's profi le. Instead he tells us a beauty,
with himself as the punchline. Born and raised in 'the lower
48,' Duncan decided on a lark, between terms at Harvard
Business School, to visit Alaska one summer " to see what it
was all about and further postpone fi nding gainful employment. "
While in Fairbanks, he noticed the North Pole " was a
classic cable market, but there wasn't a cable system. "
He returned to Boston determined to change that situation.
While still a grad student, he and a few local Fairbanks businessmen
applied for a franchise license and eventually brought
cable to the city. Duncan eventually sold the system, in 1979,
thinking he was done with cable. He headed downstate to
Anchorage. His plans changed as he and his partners founded
GCI. Years later GCI acquired the Fairbanks system that Duncan
started- " for about 1,000 times the price I sold it for. If you
were to look at the worst fi nancial decisions of your life, selling
Fairbanks cable system is probably number one, " he laughs.
More color-one of the fi rst places Duncan lived when he
came to North Pole, Alaska, was " downstairs in the Santa
Claus house. "
But let's get to why we're honoring Duncan, now GCI's
Pres/CEO: the aforementioned acquisition of six broadcast
channels, which began last November. Broadcast is a losing
proposition, right? Duncan agrees, to a point. " The situation
is a bit different for us, " he says. " The broadcast market up
FLYING FISH: Amateur
pilot Duncan in one of his
favorite seats. He lists his
hobbies as 'flying, fly fishing
and finding remote locations I
can fly to and fly fish.'
here is relatively small and had been relatively laidback, in
almost lazy [mode] prior to our entry. " Many stations were
" economically challenged... and most decided they could
make their living on retransmission fees. "
Duncan spotted an opportunity. " We realized that if we
owned some of them and used a common content-gathering
structure to support local programming we could enhance
the local experience and provide content that would be
exclusive to cable. " GCI invested heavily in HD facilities
and " very signifi cantly " in studio and remote local production
statewide. Much of what is now fi lmed is highlighted
on GCI's broadcast channels, but shown in full exclusively
on GCI's cable Channel 1, giving the system a competitive
advantage over satellite. Sports is a signifi cant share, including
games of the Alaska Aces, who were ECHL champs this
season, college and native events, like Iditarod and the Arctic
Winter Games. While it has been less than one year since
the stations were acquired, Duncan says " so far, so good. "
Fortunately he doesn't restrict his sharp thinking to Alaska,
where amateur pilot Duncan says " you can fl y for hours without
seeing people. " He's active on a bevy of industry boards,
including C-SPAN, NCTA and ACA. " He's involved in every
GCI has 140K video subs, 110K local service lines and
130K cable modem subs, equating to 65% of high-speed
data and about 80% HD penetration statewide. It's one of
Alaska's largest employers, with 2K employees.
Cablefax: The Magazine
July 2014
aspect of cable, " says ACA VP/Chief of Staff Rob Shema.
" I really like strategic thinking, solving problems, " he says,
so this Cablefax honor suits him. Still, considering he brought
cable to the North Pole, where he lived once, we think Duncan
qualifi es for a much higher honor: Santa's Helper.
- Seth Arenstein
cablefaxmag.com
21
http://www.cablefaxmag.com
Cablefax The Magazine - July 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cablefax The Magazine - July 2014
