Buckeye Draws a Line on Costs

This story was originally featured in CFX: The Magazine‘s latest Top Ops issue, where Buckeye Broadband was awarded Smaller Operator of the Year. To read the full magazine, check out the digital edition here or visit the Top Ops website. 

When Buckeye Broadband pulled ESPN from its lineup in August 2025, the Toledo-based operator lost more than a critical channel in Northern Ohio and Southeast Michigan. The same dispute with Disney took FanDuel Sports Network with it, on top of a separate breakdown with Toledo NBC affiliate WNWO over retransmission fees and subsequently NBCUniversal networks.

For most operators, that kind of loss is treated as an unavoidable cost of doing business. For Block Communications-owned Buckeye, it became a defining moment.

“When these companies offer a direct-to-consumer product, in some cases cheaper than what they’re offering it to us, I can’t do it,” says Geoff Shook, Buckeye’s President/GM.

The math, in his telling, had simply stopped working. Rising retrans and carriage fees, stacked on top of sports rights costs baked into networks few of Buckeye’s subscribers actually watched, left him unable to justify the price increases required to keep the channels. The NBC dispute crystallized the same arithmetic in starker terms, in Shook’s telling, since the network offered no local news or local programming—in addition to the cut NBCU wanted.

He doesn’t think the current retrans and carriage market dynamics are going to improve anytime soon, either. “I get it. I’m a capitalist, too. We’re in business for profit, but it’s just outstripped our ability to justify what the prices were in our markets,” Shook says, adding that once a network comes off Buckeye’s lineup, it’s difficult to make amends. “If I’ve got to go through and suffer the pain and the calls to drop a network, you’re going to have to turn water into wine to get me to put it back. It’s not that I’m just obstinate; it’s just that for three decades we’ve been kicking the can down the road with this, and at some point, my foot is tired.”

Rather than simply subtract ESPN and NBCU nets and move on, Buckeye built a replacement. Partnering with TiVo through NCTC, the company launched TV Select, a $25/month, broadband-delivered lineup of roughly 600 free ad-supported channels and a selection of linear nets, with programming guide shortcuts that route customers directly into streaming apps and subscriptions they already pay for. Plus, it scratches the local itch through regional news channel Buckeye1, Buckeye Community Arts Network (BCAN) and its RSN Buckeye Cable Sports Network (BCSN), which garnered enough credibility for Toledo ABC affiliate WTVG to contract it for local sports coverage.

Buckeye Broadband President, GM and COO Geoffrey Shook.

Buckeye backed the transition to a more streaming-heavy video lineup with its “Brainiacs” tech-support program, which the operator extended to all customers at no charge—an extension of a broader digital literacy push that has included in-store workshops and a company-published book on how to stream, commissioned by Block Communications CEO Allan Block.

Shook was skeptical at first. “It was like the first Bill Murray scene in ‘Caddyshack’… You want me to write a book and tell people how to fire us?” he recalls, before Block framed it as facing the inevitable. “Streaming isn’t going to go away. We have the best pipe. We need to show our customers how to use it. If our mission is to be the company our community turns to first to keep them connected, if [we] believe that, education is a part of that.”

The fallout has been manageable. Some customers left Buckeye, while others appreciated its efforts. Shook says Buckeye is positioned to post positive numbers for the year in the high-speed data category, aided by churn improvements alongside a second, major initiative: Rocket Internet, a prepaid flanker brand launched to fill the void left when the federal Affordable Connectivity Program expired.

“ACP was a wonderful business opportunity during COVID, and as quickly as it came, it disappeared and left a void,” Shook says. “I think it left a void across the industry. That was purely an economic play.”

Instead of losing customers in what would be an unavoidable churn event, Buckeye’s team asked what those subscribers prioritized the most. The answer, more often than not, was simplicity over the customer service extras. “I had a customer tell me, ‘Quite frankly, you guys do a great job, but I could live the rest of my life happy and not ever have to call you again.’ And so we launched a flanker brand,” Shook says.

Rocket was built around that feedback, offering internet-only service with optional paid add-ons, prepaid billing to reduce bad debt risk and a three-year price guarantee, now available across a footprint that spans Ohio, Michigan, Mississippi and Alabama. Plans start at 600 Mbps download speeds for $9.99/month, or folks can get 1 Gig for $19.99/month.

Shook describes a property like Rocket Internet as a core advantage of running a smaller-sized operator. “I’m proud of Rocket. I’m proud of the speed with which our team developed the concept and operationalized it, and it’s really made a positive imprint on our business,” he notes.

It also reflects Shook’s theory for what keeps Buckeye competitive against national players with larger marketing budgets. To him, there’s a distinct difference between customer service and customer care.

“Customer service is I answer the phone within 30 seconds. Customer care is I answer the phone inside of 30 seconds, and I take care of what the problem is,” he says. “I think that for our company, companies of our size, we have a greater ability and more opportunity to demonstrate care.”

Fast Facts

• Buckeye’s parent company Block Communications was founded in the early 1900s by Paul Block, a German immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1885. It is still run today by his descendant, Allan Block.
• Beyond Ohio and Michigan, Buckeye operates in over 20 counties across Mississippi and Alabama through its MaxxSouth Broadband subsidiary, acquired in stages starting in 2014.
• Shook was inducted into the Cable Pioneers Class of 2025.