KHON-TV
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| KHON-TV | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Honolulu, Hawaii | |
| Branding | KHON 2 |
| Slogan | Hawaii's News Channel, The Team That Knows Hawaii |
| Channels | 2 (VHF) analog, 22 (UHF) digital |
| Translators | KHAW 11/21, Hilo KAII 7/39, Wailuku K55DZ 55, Lihue |
| Affiliations | Fox The CW (on digital) Shop at Home (late night on digital 2-2) |
| Owner | Montecito Broadcast Group |
| Founded | 1953 |
| Call letters meaning | H O Nolulu |
| Former callsigns | KONA-TV (1953-57) |
| Former affiliations | NBC (1953-96) |
| Website | www.khon2.com |
KHON-TV is the Fox Broadcasting Company affiliate in Honolulu, Hawaii. The station broadcasts on analog channel two and digital channel 22, and can be seen on Oceanic Cable statewide on channel three.
In addition to its Honolulu broadcast facilities, KHON has relays on all the major Hawaiian Islands to rebroadcast programs outside of metropolitan Honolulu: KHAW-TV (channel 11/digital 21) in Hilo; KAII-TV (channel 7/digital 36) in Wailuku; and low-power K55DZ (channel 55) in Lihue.
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[edit] History
KHON signed on in 1953 as KONA-TV, an NBC affiliate, and founded by Herbert Richards. The Honolulu Advertiser purchased the station in 1954, and in 1957 the call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV. In 1973 the station was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, forerunner of Combined Communications. In 1979, Combined merged with Gannett, but had to sell KHON to Western Sun Broadcasting because the merged company was over the legal ownership limit at the time. In 1985 KHON was sold to Burnham Broadcasting.
Since the 1980s, KHON has been Hawaii's station for top-rated syndicated programming such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Wheel of Fortune, among others. In 1994 Burnham sold KHON, along with sister stations WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and WVUE in New Orleans, to SF Broadcasting, which was a joint venture of Savoy Pictures and the Fox Broadcasting Company, a division of the News Corporation. As part of the deal, all four stations became Fox affiliates. Fox was slated to control the voting stock in the venture, but before the sale closed in 1995, it was determined that Fox's stock in SF would be non-voting. Savoy Pictures controlled the day-to-day operations of the four stations.
On January 1, 1996 KHON-TV switched to Fox, and Hawaii's NBC affiliation moved to former Fox affiliate KHNL (channel 13/cable 8). Unlike the New World-owned Fox affiliates which had joined the network during the previous 18-month span, KHON ran Fox Kids programming on weekdays and Saturday mornings. KHON also expanded their local news on weekdays. KHON currently has the distinction of having the highest rated local news programming of any Fox affiliate nationwide, and also declares itself as "America's No. 1 Fox affiliate", though WSVN in Miami makes this claim as well. [1] Ironically, both stations do not mention Fox in their logo or branding.
Initially the station was branded as Fox 2, but today, the station brands itself KHON 2: Hawaii's News Channel with The Team That Knows Hawaii. It has been the highest-rated news station in Hawaii for almost 30 years. Its news operation is so well respected that even after it called itself "Fox 2", it still called its newscasts "Channel 2 News".
KHON's lead anchor, "Hawaii's most watched television newscaster" according to KHON, is Joe Moore, who in addition to his duties on KHON's 6:00 and 10:00 flagship newscasts, also anchors Hawaii's World Report at 5:30, a round-up of world and national news reports from CNN and Fox News. Moore is frequently the subject of controversy, but his popularity in the state usually prevents any attempts to rein him in.
In 1997 Savoy Pictures and Fox ended their partnership by selling their stations, including KHON-TV, to Silver King Broadcasting, a division of USA Networks. Silver King, which later became known as USA Broadcasting, owned several stations on the United States mainland that were affiliated with the Home Shopping Network, also owned by USA Networks. In 1999 USA sold all four of its Fox stations to Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications. A year later Emmis purchased CBS affiliate KGMB, thus bringing Hawaii's two oldest television stations under common ownership.
[edit] The CW Network
On October 23, 2006 KHON-TV was announced as the new affiliate for The CW Television Network on its digital subchannel of its primary Fox affiliation. [2] The CW is a new network formed after The WB and UPN networks ceased production in September 2006. Since March 2006 the CW network had struggled to find an affiliate station for the network in the Honolulu market. KHON-TV is still seeking channel assignment with Oceanic Time Warner Cable, Honolulu's primary cable provider, for those who do not have a digital television that picks up digital signals.
The network premiered on the main Channel 2 on October 24 and 25 with airings of the regular CW schedule before moving to 2-2 on October 30; this was possible due to Fox's World Series coverage airing live at 2pm Honolulu time [3], freeing up prime time. Currently the subchannel airs various syndicated programming and films outside of network hours, while airing Shop at Home programming in the overnight hours.
The channel will most likely be cable-only (if picked up by Oceanic) on Kauai for the near future, since KHON's Lihue translator on Channel 55 only carries an analog signal.
[edit] Montecito purchase and controversy
In 2005, Emmis decided to get out of television, with KHON being sold to Montecito Broadcast Group (formery SJL Broadcast Group). The sale closed on January 27, 2006. The sale has been controversial due to Montecito's plan to replace 35 of KHON's 111 employees with automation.
KHON employees first learned of the plan the morning of January 12, when General Manager Rick Blangiardi notified the staff of his intent to resign at the conclusion of the station's sale. At a 2:00 p.m. station-wide meeting, SJL announced the terminations, saying they would take place in two phases over the next two months. Moore announced the plan that evening at the end of the station's 6:00 p.m. newscast, and stated that he was concerned that the change would impact the station's ability to serve its viewers. [4] Montecito responded on January 15, assuring the public that no reporters or anchors would be affected, and the 6:00 p.m. newscast would be largely unchanged from the viewer's perspective. [5]
The purchase of KHON was scheduled to close January 26. Due to a mix-up in paperwork, however, Montecito was unable to complete the purchase of KHON that day. As a result, Emmis announced that no employees would be fired as a result of the sale until at least March 31, and that Emmis would pay additional benefits to the affected employees. [6]
Moore again used the last minutes of the 6:00 p.m. newscast, the final newscast under Emmis' ownership, to bid farewell to Blangiardi (who continues to manage KHON's former sister station, KGMB) and to criticize Montecito Broadcast Group. Among other charges, he claimed that the terminations were tantamount to "the butchering of an already lean work force" and accused Montecito of being a "virtual company" with no physical offices. Montecito's chief operating officer, Sandy Benton, disputed the charges, saying that "what was said last night was not the truth." [7]
Since the purchase, KHON's new general manager, Joe MacNamara, changed the scope of the terminations: instead of a number of people to fire, a salary goal was given. [8] Eight of KHON's nine managers resigned in a span of three days, each stating that they could not support Montecito's decision to terminate employees. (Only the chief engineer remains.) The resignations were surprising and unusual to MacNamara. The managers involved, including Blangiardi, all state that the mass exodus was not planned. [9]
Montecito continues to stand by the plan to move to automation, pointing out that most of the markets they have entered have seen ratings increases as a result of their management.
On June 28, 2006, Moore appeared to take another on-air dig at Montecito's automation plan. An audio glitch at the start of the 10pm newscast prompted Moore to stop and ask the technical crew if the problem could be fixed. A visibly disgusted Moore then blamed the new automated system, said "We're going to get this straightened out because I'm fed up with this crap", and pitched to a commercial break. When the newscast returned, the problem was fixed, and Moore resumed as normal.
Moore, who was rumored to be considering leaving KHON as a result of the sale, decided to remain as the station's chief anchor. In an e-mail to staff on February 6, Moore wrote, "How could I possibly work for owners I do not respect? After much deliberation, I reached this conclusion ... the owners are not KHON-2. We, the people who work here are KHON-2. I would not be working FOR THE OWNERS. I would be working FOR OUR VIEWERS, and WITH fellow employees I deeply respect. I have decided not to let our owners drive me out of KHON-2."
[edit] Newscasts
Weekdays
- Hawaii's Morning News - 5AM - 8AM
- Hawaii at Five - 5PM-5:30PM
- Hawaii's World Report - 5:30PM-6PM
- Hawaii at Six - 6PM-6:30PM
- Hawaii at Ten - 10PM-10:35PM
Weekends
- Hawaii at Six - 6PM-6:30PM
- Hawaii at Ten - 10PM-10:35PM
[edit] Current Anchors & Reporters
- Joe Moore (Anchor)
- Leslie Wilcox (5PM Anchor / Reporter)
- Ron Mizutani (5PM Anchor / Reporter)
- Kanoa Leahey (Sports Director & Reporter)
- Kirk Matthews (Morning Anchor / Reporter)
- Tannya Joaquin (Morning Anchor / Reporter)
- Trini Kaopuiki (Morning Weather Anchor / Reporter)
- Jai Cunningham (Weekend Anchor / Reporter)
- John Veneri (Weekend Sports Anchor / Sports Reporter)
- Gina Mangieri (Reporter)
- Manolo Morales (Reporter)
- Andrew Pereira (Reporter)
- Tina Shelton (Reporter)
- Vanessa Stewart (Reporter)
- Marisa Yamane (Reporter)
[edit] Relay stations
- KHAW-TV Channel 11 (Digital Channel 21) Hilo
- KAII-TV Channel 7 (Digital Channel 36) Wailuku
- K55DZ Channel 55 Lihue
[edit] External links
- KHON 2
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KHON-TV
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KHAW-TV
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KAII-TV
- Query the FCC's TV station database for K55DZ
| Television stations in Hawaii (Nielsen DMA #72) |
|
Honolulu: KHON 2 (Fox/The CW on DT2) - KITV 4 (ABC) - KFVE 5 (MNTV/The Tube) - KGMB 9 (CBS) - KHET 11 (PBS) - KHNL 13 (NBC) - KWHE 14 (LeSEA) - KIKU 20 (Ind) - KAAH 26 (TBN) - KBFD 32 (Ind) - KALO 38 (Ind) - KWBN 44 (DS) - KHLU 46 (UNI) - KKAI 50 (Faith TV) - KUPU 56 (Ind) - KPXO 66 (i) |
|
Hilo: KHBC 2 (NBC) - K04FE 4 (PBS) - KLEI 6 (i) - KGMD 9 (CBS) - KHAW 11 (Fox/The CW on DT2) - KHVO 13 (ABC) - KWHH 14 (LeSEA) - K34HC 34 (TBN) - K45CT 45 (MNTV) |
|
Maui: KGMV 3 (CBS) - KAII 7 (Fox/The CW on DT2) - KMEB 10 (PBS) - KMAU 12 (ABC) - KOGG 15 (NBC) - KWHM 21 (LeSEA) - K27DW 27 (MNTV) - KAUI-LP 51 (Ind) - KAMN-LP 61 (TBN) |
|
Kauai: K51BB (ABC) - K55DZ (Fox/The CW) - K57BI / K69BZ (CBS) - K62AQ / K63AI / K63AZ / K66AY / K68BE (PBS) - K65BV (NBC) |
