FOR SALE: ONE SMALL, independent cable company. Reasonable price. Best offer.
Kaslo Cable is one of a very few remaining independent cable systems. It’s an older system that doesn’t offer high speed Internet nor digital cable to its 300 or so customers – which is part of the reason they want to sell, says co-owner Kul Nijjar. She wants to see a new owner foot the bill for the expensive upgrades needed to go digital.
In lieu of a classified ad explaining the company is for sale, Nijjar (pictured below) chatted with Cartt.ca editor and publisher Greg O’Brien on what it’s like being an isolated, small cable operator.
Greg O’Brien: Can you fill me in a little bit on the history of Kaslo Cable and a little bit about Kaslo (pictured below) as well?
Kul Nijjar: It’s a small little town located in the Kootenays, an hour’s drive north of Nelson, B.C…. and what can I say about it? It’s called Little Switzerland in many magazines. It’s completely beautiful, you know, with snow peaked mountains and a great cold lake and winding roads, I just love it.
GOB: How many people?
KN: About a 1,000. (But) in the last couple years we’ve certainly seen property values go up… a lot of Albertans are buying up vacation property around here. We’re also seeing some fairly good development. There’s a 30-unit condo on its way to being completed and a brand new hotel done in the old western saloon style in the works right now.
GOB: What’s driving the economy in Kaslo? 
KN: It started out as a mining town and then it went into forestry. And now it seems like it’s at some crossroads. So, you’re seeing a lot of vacationers. Tourism is growing definitely in this area.
But you still have the resource industries going around, but not as strong as they were, like say even five or six years ago.
GOB: And what’s the demographic like in town? A lot of older folks, younger folks, a good mix?
KN: There are not very many jobs out here for families – so you definitely see a difference in the family demographics. Our school registration is not as high as it used to be. I think we have 300-odd kids registered for school and then you’re also seeing the semi-retired couple hanging out here.
GOB: Tell me about Kaslo Cable then. How old is the system?
KN: It started in 1967… by a fellow by the name of Bruce Tate… he still lives here actually. He started with two or three other guys from Vancouver and he tells the story of how it used to be sort of a "TV Society" where people paid and they had towers set up along the lake and you could get three or four channels off the air.
And, he tells the story of how he used to go out on the beach and trying to find signals and bringing a long extension cord and probably one of the first TVs and lying on the beach and watching Gunsmoke.
Then, over the years it’s changed hands a few times. And I believe in the mid-’80s, there was a major revamping of the cable system where they expanded so it passed 500 homes.
We bought it five years ago in 2002.
GOB: So, what does the system offer?
KN: We don’t offer a lot of services other than just analog TV.
GOB: How many channels?
KN: We are in the process of just in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to go up to 48 channels.
GOB: So, no digital and no internet?
KN: We don’t offer that no, which is why we’d like to sell it, because then it’d be nice if somebody else could put in the money and upgrade it, because we’re seeing a lot of people move from the bigger centres and they’re used to getting TV – you know, digital, high speed, everything all at once.
GOB: So they would turn to your competitors, then.
KN: …Our advantage is we’re local here. We’ve lived here for 16 years, so you do get to know everybody, and you can really work that whole loyalty and local aspect.
Plus, we provide a really good community channel.
GOB: Is that like a traditional volunteer-driven cable community channel?
KN: Kind of. I do it myself.
GOB: Is it text news or do you have anything else on-air…
KN: We do a talk show – and we just
choose different personalities around the area. We also do all the local sporting events with play-by-play commentary and then we do the political scene where we host all-candidate meetings. We go film the council meetings and they’re very hot community interest.
GOB: Right, right. I used to do stuff like that as editor of a weekly newspaper in a small town. What made you want to buy the system five years ago?
KN: That is what it was. I didn’t want to go work for somebody else and do shift work and put my kids in day care… and I’m not cut out to just stay at home.
GOB: How much did you know about cable before?
KN: I didn’t. When I was going to school in Toronto, I worked for Classicom Cable at their front desk.
GOB: How long ago was that then?
KN: I don’t know 20 years ago?
GOB: So, do you do your own repair work?
KN: We do. My husband has learned it over the years. We had a fellow from Shaw Cable, one of their head end tech guys come out and spend a weekend with us at the beginning to kind of give us starting-out knowledge.
GOB: Probably not too many service calls in a week though?
KN: No. I think with the maximum of service calls, office work, maybe 14 hours a week.
GOB: So, you’ve got no plans, I guess, to go digital or offer Internet for the time being you’re looking to sell right?
KN: That’s what we’d like to do… My husband owns a fairly successful timber frame home building business and that’s what he’s concentrating on – just because you could make more money at it. And, he’s getting busier, so it would be nice for somebody to come in and give Kaslo the services that it needs.
GOB: How far away are you say from the nearest Shaw system?
KN: A bit too far. We just met with someone from Shaw actually. The guy came out and took a look at our system. But there’s not enough residences here. (And) I think it’s about a half an hour drive away where their system ends… There’s not enough residences to pay for their costs to build it into us… and they wouldn’t buy a stand-alone system and operate it.
GOB: But with all of the development you mentioned, maybe it’s going to get better at one point.
KN: That’s what it seems like. I think it will still take another few years, but it seems no doubt that at one point it will happen like that.
GOB: Are there any other towns with cable operations near by?
KN: Nope.
GOB: Have you gone to Persona or anything like that?
KN: No, we haven’t. Actually I haven’t completely pursued it. I had been thinking of just advertising it and then I sent out an e-mail to Shaw and then they sent out the guy and he explained why they couldn’t buy it, but perhaps in the future it might make more sense if more people moved into the area.
GOB: So, you’ve got no idea of a price or anything like that?
KN: Just other people that we’ve talked to in the business, they’ve said that with cable companies you run from about $800 to about $1,500 a subscriber, depending on what kind of services you offer.
GOB: That sounds about right for a small system.
KN: I always figured it would be somebody who’s maybe looking to retire in a few years from the cable industry and maybe wants more of a hobby kind of a job or something – because it does make money. You’re not going to get rich off it, but it does profit of about $40,000 a year.
GOB: Are you losing customers to the dish still or has that sort of stopped?
KN: In the five years we’ve owned it, we haven’t necessarily gained a whole lot of customers, but we’ve certainly leveled it off. And we have had probably about 20 customers switch over to Star Choice. And then we’ve probably had another dozen that have Star Choice and keep Kaslo Cable. I think mostly that has to do with the community channel.
GOB: A lot of the local stuff is missing from the satellite services.
KN: Absolutely. And when you live in a small town, of course you want to see your kids because either they’re your kids or they’re your kids friends or they’re your grandkids and when we do the hockey games, we do it on a very hokey level, but we try to do it like the NHL games on TV and they think it’s great. It works really well.
And then the talk show is pretty interesting. There are a lot of very different and unique people that live here and I interviewed a schizophrenic person and he talked about what it was like to be a schizophrenic in this day and age and living in a small town.
The mayor gets on every once in a while, as do the local papers, the dog catcher lady… and then we also do Kaslo Cops, where I go ride around with the police and see what they’re up to. That’s fun.
GOB: Are the Kaslo Cops that busy?
KN: That’s one thing I really enjoy about the business is the community channel and doing all the little shows around town. It certainly shows like small town life, how it is in Canada. If you turn on CBC news, they’re talking about terrorists and security and whatever right? All those big headlines. And then you turn to channel 10 and we’re talking about loose dogs and people not scooping after their pets or the neighbor who’s got a trailer in his yard that needs to be removed and… it’s such a huge difference.
GOB: I’ve been saying that for years. There’s lot of information out there in the media, but not very much that’s truly important to your daily life.
KN: Right… and we know pretty much everybody. So, you get to hear different things like, for example, this lady who sold her huge piece of property just outside of Kaslo for a lot of money and now she moved into town and was stealing water from the village, not paying for the connection, right? So then you go downtown and then everybody’s asking about it. Did you hear—blah, blah, blah, you know?
And it’s interesting what an impact it can make in the town itself too, just by showing even the council meetings. I think whatever you hear from Ottawa doesn’t necessary affect our daily life here in Kaslo, but these councilors and the mayor, whatever they talk about does instantly affect our life here.
So then I get some councilors always trying to bend my ear. And then each time a new mayor comes in it always starts off on the wrong foot, because they’re freaked out about the camera and it’s not because I edit any of it but I’m the one that’s showing them look like fools if that’s how they end up acting right?
GOB: Kill the messenger.
KN: That’s right. But then after a while, they get into a groove. I’ve done three mayors now and so it’s kind of interesting. Now he figures out how to use it to his advantage and he plays to the camera. And it’s good for them too though… they seem to get more polished, or smarter.
