Radio Station I-94 FM, NBC Hawaii's News 8 broadcast and Channel 2's Joe Moore are the winners in this year's 2nd Annual Hawaii Radio & Television Guide Reader's Poll. The poll conducted during a six week period from October 1 to November 15, 1997 drew 66 respondents mainly from Oahu who stated their preferences as to what they liked about Hawaii's radio stations and local television news. The poll is a completely unscientific snapshot of reader opinions and preferences.

During the polling period, a couple of major developments occured on the local radio and television dial. First, Robert Kekaula, a popular sports anchor from Channel 8 (KHNL) was fired and re-hired by his old station KITV 4. One new radio station went on the air (KXME FM) just as the poll started, and another (KMVI AM) changed its format to rock n roll oldies. Shortly after the poll closed, KIKI AM changed its format to country music.

The changes probably did not affect the poll's outcome, mainly because the sample size was so small.

Nevertheless the results are in and here are the raw numbers and some commentary.

RADIO STATIONS

Patterson Hawaii's I-94 FM (KIKI 93.9 FM) is the most popular station among the voters. It received 6 votes, more than any other to claim the #1 spot this year. This is not a "huge" win since last year's winner, Radio Free Hawaii (now off the air) garnered 18 votes. I-94 however did pick up 3 more votes than it did last year, good enough to give it the #1 spot.

I-94's morning show also proved to be the most popular, but not by too much. The Rory Wild & the Wake Up Crew show brought in 8 votes this year, 3 more than their closest rivals, Perry & Price on KSSK, Cliff & Erica on KQMQ and Kimo Kahoano & Keri Steele on KRTR, all tied for 2nd place with 5 votes each.

All of the top vote getting radio stations and morning shows are on Oahu. Several neighbor island radio stations got one vote each, including KIPA AM in Hilo, KPOA FM in Lahaina and KQNG FM in Lihue.

If someone went solely by this poll, one would see that Hawaii Public Radio's "Morning Edition" which led last year's morning show votes with 7 votes has lost its momentum after picking up only one vote this year. Quite possibly this site is not attracting the more well educated and informed listeners... Rick Hamada's issue oriented morning talk show on KHVH however did bring in 4 votes, good enough for a tie for 3rd place with the syndicated Mark & Brian show on KKLV 98.5 FM. It is quite possible that some "Morning Edition" listeners are now listening to Hamada.

INTERNET BITCASTERS

Lumped together with the overall radio ratings, Internet Radio Hawaii would also be in 1st place with I-94 FM. The weekly Hawaiian Music netcast produced by Robert "Rabbett" Abbett picked up 6 votes, most of them from within Hawaii. Coming in a close 2nd is L.D. Reynold's "Hawaiian Jamz" bitcast, which got 5 votes. Both of these are exclusive to the internet. KPOA FM's lone vote is apparently a result of their internet bitcast as the person who voted for them is from Arizona.

LOCAL TELEVISION NEWS

A great majority of our respondents watch local TV news at one time or another. The TV poll drew more responses than did the radio portion.

Surprisingly our voters chose NBC Hawaii News 8 as their favorite local newscast. The KHNL operation got 19 votes. It was followed by KGMB's news with 17 votes. The highly rated Channel 2 News (according to A.C. Neilsen) came in with 11 votes tied with KITV 4's news. The funny thing is that this poll result is completely opposite as to what the larger Neilsen poll shows. Of course, our polling sample is significantly smaller, and the methodology here is purely random and unscientific.

Still, News 8 at #1 is a bit surprising!

As far as favorite news anchor and reporter goes, Joe Moore still rules. While his Channel 2 newscast is in a 2 way tie for 3rd, Moore himself is still #1 with voters. He brought in 10 votes among our small pool of 66 respondents. News 8's Dan Cooke is in 2nd with 8 votes, followed by KGMB weather girl Kim Gennaula with 5 votes. KITV's Tina Shelton got 4 votes good enough for 4th place.

One thing the poll shows that pretty much reflects the Neilsen trends is that more people watch the late and evening newscasts over the earlier ones. 26 people watch the 10PM news, 18 the 6PM, 5 the 5:PM early evening news and 7 the morning news. Hawaii's TV stations will do the best if they keep on improving their bread and butter 6PM and 10PM newscasts.

As for Hawaii's favorite television networks, NBC and Fox led the pack with 18 and 12 votes respectively. All others were in the single digits. I guess a lot of people watch the NBC comedy blocks, "E.R." and Fox's soap dramas, cartoons and "The X Files."

DEMOGRAPHICS

In a nutshell the poll attracted 66 respondents of which 38 were male, 26 female and 2 apparently have no sex (hehe). The age demographics break as follows: 13-17 yrs. 6; 18 - 25 yrs. 22; 26 - 49 yrs. 27; 50+ years 10. Fifty-five respondents were from Hawaii, out of which 47 claimed Oahu as their island residence. 10 respondents are from the mainland U.S. There were no foreign respondents.

LINKS

The following links take you to more information regarding the Second Annual Reader's Poll. The Reader comments section is a must read to get a snapshot of what people think about Hawaii's radio and TV media.

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