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August 24, 1999 New Planet Radio Sells Stations It was reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin that New Planet Radio, owners of radio stations KRTR 96.3 FM, KXME 104.3 FM, KGMZ 107.9 FM & KGMZ 1460 AM will be selling their properties to conglomerate Cox Radio for $16 million. The sale is to be finalized this coming December. Cox is the 5th largest radio conglomerate in the United States. No mention on whether or not programming at any of the stations will be changed.
For more details read the full story at this URL:
Pax TV's "Destination Stardom" talent show premiered last night on Channel 66. Hosting the locally made, but nationally aired program are Lisa Canning and Kala'i Miller. The show airs Monday and repeats Saturday nights. Bob Hogue is back on KCCN 1420 AM talk radio. The station recently signed on to bring listeners ESPN sports radio while continuing to do some of their local talk shows. KCCN continues to also be the University of Hawaii's sports radio station. KITV Channel 4 recently changed their weekend news line-up. Dick Allgire is out (but still doing the Health Reports) and Shawn Ching is in as weekend news anchor. Ching shares the news anchoring duties with Jodi Leong. Robert Kekaula has moved to the weeknight sports anchor desk. The Honolulu Advertiser's Wayne Harada wrote a feature piece on the state of morning radio in this past Sunday's (August 22) newspaper. Citing the obvious from recent ratings, Harada noted that the team of Perry & Price still command a sizeable lead in the Honolulu market though several other stations including KCCN FM 100 and I-94 FM (KIKI) are out there carving out bigger pieces of the listener pie. There were some technical errors made in the feature piece including citing the wrong frequency numbers for KTUH and KCCN FM. KPOI 97.5 FM is the lead sponsor for this year's annual "Big Mele" rockfest set to happen on Saturday Sept. 18 at the North Shore's Turtle Bay Hilton field. Bands scheduled to appear include The Offspring, Bad Religion and The Flys. Golden Voice is producing. HGTV's "Restore America with Bob Villa" will do a feature on Hawaii this coming Sunday, August 29 reports Janet Leopold of National Tropical Garden. The program airs at 4 and 7pm on HGTV. Honolulu's low power UHF channels 48 and 60 are back on the air. KOHO radio was recently sold and may be on the air again soon.
New Website Streams Hawaiian Music Could the wave of radio rest on the web? A new Hawaiian music website may is certainly adding to this small but growing trend of internet only "radio" stations. PH1Hawaii is billing itself as Hawaii's "first commercial entertainment channel on the internet." The web service delivers a streaming Real Audio webcast of Hawaiian music favorites with their own in-house DJ named Derek Dakine. Their website can be found at http://www.PH1Hawaii.com. The Real Audio G2 player is required to listen to their netcast. PH1Hawaii is the latest in a growing number of internet websites devoted to streaming Hawaiian music audio. Other sites include Rabbett's Internet Radio Hawaii, L.D. Reynolds' Hawaiian Jamz and Aloha Joe's Mainland Hawaiian Radio.
FM 100 Tops Arbitron Ratings Heap Pacific Business News writer Erika Engle reports that KCCN FM 100 topped the Spring 1999 Arbitron ratings. The popular island music station beat perinnial ratings leader KSSK FM & AM in the overall ratings. However KSSK’s morning drive team of Perry and Price are still #1 in their time slot. It was also reported that contemporary Christian music station KAIM FM has made a dramatic climb in the ratings with Dave Lancaster and Jim Mendoza’s morning show leading that station up the heap. Meanwhile ratings for KIKI FM/AM (I –94) and Xtreme Radio have dropped off. The complete article appears at the PBN website at this URL: http://www.amcity.com/pacific/stories/1999/08/09/story8.html
Pax TV's Destination Stardom talent-variety show has started rolling tape in anticipation of that series debut later this month. A story about the program’s taping appears at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin website. The program will debut locally on KPXO TV 66 (27 on Oceanic cable). http://starbulletin.com/1999/08/06/features/story2.html
KHVH Radio Off and On Again KHVH radio 830 on the AM dial was knocked off the air. A technical problem with their transmitter tower forced the station to cancel most of its Sunday and Monday programming. A replacement part to fix the problem was ordered from Nova Scotia and installed yesterday. KHVH's talk format programming moved Monday afternoon to its AM sister station, KIKI AM 990, which usually simulcasts KIKI's FM programming. On Wednesday afternoon, KHVH returned to 830 spot on the dial while still broadcasting over 990 AM.
News in Brief Not much to report this week. Got an email from KUMU's Jeff Coelho stating that their FM 94.7 station format is now "Lite Rock." Given a listen I noticed the instrumental tracks are gone from rotation. Oceanic Cable will be moving KPXO from channel 66 to channel 27 on the cable dial on August 7. The station is Hawaii's PAX TV affiliate focusing on family entertainment. Details of the move from PBN. Former Hawaii entertainer Ritchie Walker recently wrote stating that he and several former Hawaii radio personalities are on Taiwan's ICRT radio. Walker is doing that station's morning show. You can visit ICRT's website and see them broadcasting live on the air.
KHON TV Moving Soon to 404 Piikoi St. Work continues on KHON TV's new home at 404 Piikoi St. across from Honolulu's Ala Moana Shopping Center. When opened the Fox affiliate will be in new ground floor facilities known as the KHON TV 2 Broadcast Center. According to a recently received news tip, the station will start broadcasting at their new facility on September 6, just in time for the launch of the new fall TV season. On an unrelated note, newly hired investigative reporter, Tina Shelton may be anchoring the weekend news on July 24 and 25, sitting in for Kirk Matthews. KHON is Hawaii's Fox network affiliate and is the home to the state's top rated nightly local newscast featuring anchor Joe Moore.
Mystery of Hilo's Channel 22 Solved Charles Boehnke from the Big Island reports that the call letters for low power TV station Channel 22, broadcasting in the Hilo and Volcano area is K22EL. He referred to an article (July 9) that was published in the Hawaii Tribune Herald newspaper on the Big Island noting that Channel 22 went on the air June 16. It is operated by Hawaii 22 Inc. and operates "with 34.00 kW ERP from OLAA Forest Reserve, near Volcano, Hilo, HI." The article continues that the station is not re-broadcasting any other station and according to Charles is currently airing a "Jewelry Shopping Service, (of) unknown origin".
Mynah Bird on FM Hilo's popular morning radio personality, Mel "Mynah Bird" Medeiros is now broadcasting part of his show on FM. Big Island Broadcasting which owns Hilo radio stations KIPA AM 620 and KAOE FM 92.7 and also KKON 790 AM in Kona recently started simulcasting the popular KIPA morning show on the latter 2 stations. The Mynah Bird show airs on KAOE and KKON from 6 to 8 AM, with KIPA getting the full 4 hours from 6 to 10. The Mynah Bird show airs 6 days a week. KIPA plays an adult standards format while KAOE/KKON simulcasts a "Kool Oldies" rock n roll music format. For longtime Big Island listeners having Mynah Bird on FM is somewhat of a significant first.
Tina Shelton Joins KHON TV News Tina Shelton, a familiar face on island TV moved to KHON after a long stint at KITV. She made her on-air debut yesterday and will serve as that station's investigative reporter. Shelton was actively recruited by popular KHON anchor Joe Moore for her skills and talent in investigative journalism according to a report that appeared in this week's MidWeek newspaper. Until earlier this year, Ms. Shelton had been a co-anchor on KITV's popular and rising News 4 at 6 and 10. Moving to top rated KHON TV will give here more visibility to a larger audience.
KHNL TV Sold It was reported by various media yesterday that Honolulu's NBC TV station KHNL Channel 13 (News 8 Hawaii) was sold by its owner A.H. Belo Corporation to Raycom Media for $88 million. The sale is pending FCC approval. Bundled with the deal is KHNL's operating rights to sister station, KFVE TV, the local UPN/WB affiliate and home to the lucrative University of Hawaii TV sports contract.
More details at the Honolulu Star Bulletin, July 2, 1999 edition.
Short Takes Congratulations to KHVH radio personality Rick Hamada who wed Bernadette Barracquio late last month. Hamada returns to the airwaves on July 6. Viewers in Hilo report that there is a new television station on the air there... no one seems to know the call letters, but the station is definitely broadcasting on UHF TV Channel 22 with a shopping program format. Meanwhile in Honolulu someone is trying to get UHF Channel 48 back on the air, as it has been sending out errant signals for several weeks now. If anyone has any details on these 2 stations, email me. Interesting posts occuring in the Soc.Culture.Hawaii newsgroup regarding Top 40 Hits on Hawaii Radio. Visit the SCH newsgroup through Deja News or through your local usenet newsfeed.
Governor Spins Off Hawaii Public TV In an effort to cut state costs, Governor Cayetano recently signed a bill that severs the ties between the state and Hawaii Public Televison, operators of TV stations KHET Channel 11 & KMEB Channel 10. The PBS stations will become independent non-profit organizations which and be managed by non-profit organization called the Hawaii Public Television Foundation. The transfer will take place on July 1, 2000. Broadcast equipment, facilities, records and licenses will be turned over to the foundation then. The transference of Hawaii Public Television out of state jurisdiction will "save over $.7 million a year beginning in fiscal year 2001" according to a press release issued by the Governor's office. The action is pending FCC approval.
Update: KHET Gears Up to Turn Private, Pacific Business News, 6-28-99
Governor's Press Release:
Hawaii Public Television / KHET website
KWXX Adds 24 Hour Streaming Audio Hilo Radio station KWXX 94.7 FM is now streaming their island music / adult contemporary radio format 24 hours a day. The technology behind their webcast is being provided by Webradio.com. A java capable browser is required in order to hear the broadcast. KWXX 94.7 FM website: http://www.kwxx.com
New Wave Media Stations Get New URLs New Wave Media, owners of a 5 station Honolulu radio conglomerate recently switched the URLs to their popular stations and added 2 more. KQMQ AM & FM, as well as KPOI's website switched their content to the new URLs. New Wave also added webpages and domains for their 2 newer stations, KKHN FM and KORL FM. The URLs to the stations are as follows:
KPOI 97.5 FM: http://www.kpoi.net KORL 99.5 FM: http://www.korl.net KKHN 102.7 FM: http://www.kkhn.net Their website links have been updated on the usual Hawaii Radio & Television Guide's dial list pages.
PAX Network to Film in Hawaii Convention Center The PAX Network announced yesterday that they will be filming a 25 episode music variety show in Hawaii. The show, based on the old "Star Search" series will be a weekly, one hour feature on the 7th network, PAX TV. The title of the new program has not been announced, nor has any host or talent been signed up. Filming will take place in the Convention Center's exhibition hall and will feature a studio audience. The PAX TV network is aired locally in Hawaii on KPXO TV Channel 66. The network is targeted for a family viewing audience and offers programs ranging from rethreads of Touched by An Angel to original series like Great Day America and It's A Miracle. More details on the new program's announcement at this URL: http://starbulletin.com/1999/05/19/news/story1.html The URL to PAX TV is: http://www.pax.net/.
KHNL TV May Be Sold The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports tonight that Honolulu TV station, KHNL at Channel 13 but popularly known and placed at Channel 8 on most cable TV systems will go up for sale. The company that owns the station stated that KHNL's operations were too far away from their home base on the mainland according to the article. KHNL is Hawaii's NBC affiliate. They also program KFVE TV. More info at the Star Bulletin URL: http://starbulletin.com/1999/05/20/business/story1.html
USA Network TV Series Films in Hawaii Cable TV's "Pacific Blue" series is currently on Oahu filming two episodes for their upcoming fall season. The series is one of the USA Network's most popular programs. Producers of the show have stated that they may move the series to Hawaii on a permanenet basis if the upcoming 2 episodes become ratings winners.
KORL Debuts New Soft Rock / Hawaiian Music Format After almost 6 months in transition, Honolulu radio station KORL 99.5 FM finally came out with their new format this week. The station is playing a mix of soft rock and island music favorites, billing their format as "Soft Rock Island Style." Doing the new morning show on KORL is Kimo Kahoano, who most recently did the morning drive on country station KKHN. He is being paired with newsman Dale Payson who until recently, was with KHVH radio. The station's new in-studio phone number will be 296-KORL. Until last year, KORL aired a Japanese music and information format aimed at the tourist market. The station was recently acquired by New Wave Broadcasting, which also owns KKHN 102.7 FM, KPOI 97.5 FM and KQMQ AM & FM.
News in Brief Listeners of Rick Hamada's KHVH morning show recently found out that his long-time sidekick Barry Vilamil was let go. Charlie Garrett is doing the morning drive show at KKHN 102.7 FM. He recently moved up from the afternoon drive slot. KQMQ AM 690 is still off the air. Oceanic Cable is offering subscribers a new digital TV service with new standard channels added. MTV's "Real World" television series finished taping several episodes in Hawaii. The island based episodes will air starting in June. Baywatch Hawaii starts filming in Haleiwa on Oahu's North Shore next month. Local cast members were recently named.
New Wave Broadcasting Stations Move New Wave Broadcasting, owners of Honolulu radio stations KQMQ AM & FM, KKHN FM, KPOI FM and KORL FM have moved to a new office in Waikiki. As a result of the move, KQMQ AM's signal has been off the air for more than a week. A station spokesperson stated that the AM operation will be on the air "in a few days." New Wave is also testing their recently acquired KORL 99.5 FM with a new stereo signal. See the Oahu Radio Addresses page for the new address to New Wave Broadcasting.
Maui's KNUI and KMVI Radio Stations Sold Two of Maui's oldest radio stations have been sold. Lahaina Broadcasting, owners of KPOA and KLHI radio have bought the AM & FM operations of KNUI and KMVI radio. The sale was announced on Monday, May 3. KNUI AM switched to a new format, known as "Aloha Classics AM900" playing only Hawaiian music. The other stations' program formats will remain the same.
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