In a move to offset what is seen by some as a negative public image created by the reality television show "Deadliest Catch," and to encourage oil company workers to make permanent homes locally, the Unalaska City Council is giving money to an Anchorage advertising firm to promote a wholesome image.

The $15,000 expenditure is for a media and information packet created by Northwest Strategies, and substantially more funding is expected later to promote Unalaska in Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. The ad campaign was recommended by a local committee including the mayor, planning director and Assistant City Manager Patrick Jordan, who complains that "Deadliest Catch" presents a "fishing town with a bar problem."

The city government wants the outside world to know there's more to life in Unalaska than getting drunk. The 10-year-old Discovery Channel show depicts life on Bering Sea commercial crab boats based in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor.

"Unfortunately, due in no small part to reality television, Unalaska is known for an image that is not truly representative of the community and its vast potential as an industry hub," said Northwest Strategies' proposal.

Beyond the initial recent funding on Feb. 20, the company recommends spending $5,000 to $7,000 per month on improving its public image, and the city's budget contains $80,000 for that purpose. That's substantially less than the "full-blown marketing plan" of $400,000 originally suggested, according to City Manager Chris Hladick. At the city's request, the promotion company trimmed its proposal from $400,000 to $117,000 to $168,000, he said.

Hladick described the public relations campaign's goals in a Feb. 10 memo to the city council:

"Encourage professionals, small business owners and tradespeople to choose Unalaska as a place to live and work. Promote a positive general perception of our community, both internally and externally," and also "diversify our presently thriving economic base," in view of "huge changes on the horizon with the advent of oil and gas exploration off the north coast of Alaska." Yet Hladick also said the town does not want to be "defined by 'big oil.' "

The proposed public relations bankroll would go toward encouraging news organizations to write positive stories about the town and even provide airfare for on-site trips. Paid advertising would include a year of 15-second-long upbeat announcements on the morning and nightly news shows of the Alaska Public Radio Network and print ads in Upstream Texas, Petroleum News, Oil and Gas Journal, Oil and Gas Investor, online ads in Alaska Dispatch News and other media.

Meanwhile, "Deadliest Catch" is having another problem with public funding, facing the elimination of the state's film tax credit program. Last week, three Original Productions workers testified in support of the program, saying they are all Alaska residents from Anchorage whose careers benefited from it, despite the testimony of the Legislature's Washington, D.C., consultant, who described the film business "as a particularly poor industry to subsidize."

But the crab fishing show's employees saw it differently in teleconference testimony at the Legislative Information Office in Unalaska last week.

"Not only are we working, but we are growing at our craft," said Beth Skabar, a former weekly newspaper layout artist for the now-defunct Alaska Newspapers Inc., which published the Bristol Bay Times and The Dutch Harbor Fisherman when they were separate publications.

Lisa Roberts, a former bartender at the Harbor View in Unalaska, described herself as a film industry success story. She said she's spent the past seven years on the show, advancing from assistant to producer, and is a graduate of the University of Alaska Southeast with a degree in marketing.

Videographer Daniel Lee of Anchorage said his family has been in Alaska for 50 years and said he has worked on film projects throughout the state, and that the jobs are helping his wife pay for an advanced degree in psychology.

The Senate Labor and Commerce Committee heard from film industry supporters across the state telephonically. One supporter responded to complaints that reality TV shows too much dysfunction. Yet he noted the state's high rate of alcoholism and domestic violence. "My real question is, how can we look any worse?" he asked.

And another recalled that the popular Alaska TV drama "Northern Exposure" was filmed in a different state. That show's producers said they couldn't afford to work in Alaska.