KHON-TV

KHON-TV is a Fox-affiliated television station in Honolulu, Hawaii. The station broadcasts on digital channel 8.

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. KHON can also be seen statewide on Oceanic Time Warner Cable analogue channel 3.

KHON-TV holds an affiliation with The CW Television Network on its second digital subchannel. This operation is known on-air as Hawaii's CW 93; the "93" refers to the subchannel's channel position on local digital cable systems.

History
KHON signed on in 1952 as KONA-TV, an NBC affiliate owned by Herbert Richards. The Honolulu Advertiser purchased the station in 1954, and in 1956 the station was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, forerunner of Combined Communications. In 1965 the call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV. In 1973, Pacific and Southern Broadcasting had to spin off KHON to the company's president Arthur H. McCoy in order for the company to be officially merged into Combined Communications (which would itself be merged into the Gannett Company six years later) because the merged company was over the legal ownership limit at the time. In 1979 KHON and its satellites were sold to Western-Sun Broadcasting. In 1985 KHON was sold to Burnham Broadcasting.

In 1994 Burnham sold KHON, along with sister stations WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and WVUE inNew 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 called itself Fox 2, and Hawaii's NBC affiliation moved to former Fox affiliate KHNL(channel 13). 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 its local news on weekdays, seeing an increase in newscast ratings with an affiliation switch.[1] 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] Neither station mentions Fox in its logo or branding. When KHON was rebranded to KHON 2 in 2004, it became the first Fox station to ditch the network's station standardization styling.

From 2002 to 2004, KHON carried select programming from the now-defunct UPN television network as a secondary affiliation. In the Honolulu market, KFVE, previously was a UPN affiliate from 1995 until 2002, when the station decided to drop UPN and switch its primary affiliation to the WB Television Network. KHON was one of two stations that aired UPN programming on a secondary basis in Hawaii during this period; KGMB was the other. KIKU-TV picked up secondary UPN affiliation in the fall of 2004.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.

In 2005, Emmis decided to get out of television, with KHON being sold to Montecito Broadcast Group (formerly 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. Joe 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. [2] 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. [3]

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. [4]

Moore 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." [5]

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. [6] 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. [7] Montecito continued to stand by the plan to move to automation, pointing out that most of the markets it has entered have seen ratings increases as a result of Montecito management.

On June 28, 2006, Moore appeared to take another on-air dig at Montecito's automation plan. For two weeks, a noticeable echo could be heard during the newscast. At the start of that night's 10pm newscast, it 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 go to commercial. We're going to get this straightened out because I'm fed up with this crap." 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."

On July 24, 2007, Montecito announced the sale of all of its stations (KHON, plus KOIN in Portland, KSNW in Wichita and its satellites, and KSNT in Topeka) to New Vision Television. On November 1 of that year, New Vision officially took over ownership of the stations. [8]

Hawaii's CW 93
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On October 23, 2006 KHON-TV announced that the station would become the Honolulu affiliate for The CW Television Network on its second digital subchannel, KHON-DT 2-2. [9] The CW is a new network formed after the WB and UPN networks ceased operations and merged in September 2006. Since March 2006, The CW Network had struggled to find an affiliate station for the network in the Honolulu market after Honolulu's then-WB affiliate KFVE, which was seen by many as the strongest possible station in the area to carry the CW, signed with the competing network MyNetworkTV, and former UPN affiliate KIKU (which aired the network's programming in the afternoons) declined to take CW affiliation.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The network premiered on the main Channel 2 on October 24 and 25 with airings of the regular CW schedule before moving to digital 2-2 on October 30; this was possible due to Fox's2006 World Series coverage airing live at 2pm Honolulu time [10], freeing up prime time.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On December 11, 2006, Oceanic Time Warner Cable began offering KHON-TV's CW feed on digital cable channel 93 for those who do not have a digital television that picks up digital signals, and the subchannel uses this cable channel position for its branding [11]. The channel is currently cable-only on Kauai, since KHON's Lihue translator only carries an analog signal. Currently the subchannel airs various syndicated shows, sitcom reruns and films outside of network hours along with repeats of KHON programming, while airing Shop at Homeprogramming in the overnight hours. Some of the subchannel's syndicated programming comes from The CW Plus.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">On Monday August 20, 2007, "Hawaii's CW 93" began airing the nationally syndicated morning news show The Daily Buzz [12]. The show's former carrier in the Honolulu market, KGMB, dropped the show the preceding Friday (August 17) in favor of a local morning newscast titled Sunrise on KGMB9, which launched on September 17. Unlike KGMB, which only aired the first two hours of The Daily Buzz every weekday morning, "Hawaii's CW 93" airs the show in its three-hour entirety every Monday through Friday from 5-8am. With this, KHON-DT2 is now one of many The CW affiliates across the country airing the show.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">As of October 2007, KHON-DT2 clears The CW's entire 30-hour weekly schedule. However, the subchannel had aired The CW's Sunday night lineup an hour off-schedule, from 5-10 p.m. until the Sunday lineup was dropped and the hours given to its affiliates in September 2009.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Incidentally, KHON was a secondary affiliate of one of The CW's predecessor networks, UPN, from 2002 to 2004 as mentioned above. This was at a time when secondary affiliations were more common and the advent of digital subchannels was not as widespread as it is today.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">As of January 2008, Hawaii's CW 93 does not have its own website. The only mentions of the subchannel on KHON's website is in the station's programming schedule and a link to The CW's website.

Satellite stations
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">These stations rebroadcast KHON-TV's signal throughout Hawaii: <p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Notes:


 * 1. The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says KAII-TV signed on November 17, while the Television and Cable Factbook says it signed on November 19.

Digital television
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Digital channels <p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">After Hawaii's analog television shutdown on January 15, 2009,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[2] KHON-TV moved from channel 2 to channel 8, using PSIP to display KHON's virtual channel as 2, while KHAW-TV and KAII-TV returned to channels 11 and 7.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-Analog_to_Digital_2-0" style="line-height: 1em; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; ">[3]

Programming
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">KHON clears the entire Fox network schedule (nightly primetime, Saturday late night, and Fox Sports programming, along with the network's Saturday morning infomerical block,Weekend Marketplace and the political talk show Fox News Sunday). However, the station presently airs Fox's Sunday night programming an hour late, from 7-10 p.m. Hawaii Time, and the Saturday late night lineup (currently The Wanda Sykes Show and reruns of the short-lived Fox sitcom Brothers) airs a half-hour later than on most affiliates airing at 10:30 p.m., due to its nightly 10 p.m. newscast.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">KHON's CW subchannel aired weekly CFL broadcasts for the 2007 season after former University of Hawaii star quarterback Timmy Chang earned a backup spot with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the pre-season. [13]

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">For the longest time, both ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy! Jeopardy!] and Wheel of Fortune aired on KHON, but Jeopardy!'' has since moved to KGMB.

News operation
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Initially after the switch to Fox, the station was branded as Fox 2: Hawaii's News Channel, but today the station brands itself as KHON 2: Hawaii's News Channel. It has been the highest-rated news station in Hawaii for almost 30 years. The station's news operation is so well respected that even after it called itself "Fox 2", it still called its newscasts "Channel 2 News". For this reason, KHON-TV's newscasts are not identified as "Fox 2 News" or "The Ten O'Clock News" like other Fox stations are.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">KHON is the only Fox affiliate in the United States with a news operation that does not air a primetime newscast. In Hawaii, the major networks' primetime programming ends at 10 p.m., which is the same time it ends in the Central and Mountain time zones in the continental U.S., this means Fox affiliates would generally air their late evening newscasts at 9 p.m., instead KHON airs its late newscast at 10 p.m., competing against KITV, KGMB and KHNL instead of only competing with KFVE.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">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 and 10 p.m. 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.

Newscast titles

 * Your Esso Reporter (1952–1958)
 * The Hawaii Report (1958–1965)
 * Pulse News (1965–1969)
 * TV-2 News (1969–1973)
 * The News with B.J. Sams (1973–1974)
 * TV-2 Eyewitness News (1974–1977)
 * TV-2 Action News (1977–1979)
 * Action 2 News (1979–1982)
 * Channel 2 News (1982-September 2003)
 * KHON 2 News (September 2003–present)

Station slogans

 * Welcome to Our World (1975–1976; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * TV-2, Proud as a Peacock! (1979–1981; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * 2 Belongs (1979–1982)
 * TV-2, Our Pride is Showing (1981–1982; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * We're TV-2, Just Watch Us Now (1982–1983; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * TV-2 There, Be There (1983–1984; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * TV-2, Let's All Be There! (1984–1986; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * Hawaii's Place to Be (1985–1990; unrelated to the 1990-1992 NBC "The Place to Be" ad campaign)
 * Come on Home to TV-2 (1987–1988; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * Come Home To The Best, Only on TV-2 (1988–1990; localized version of NBC campaign)
 * Hawaii's 24-Hour News Channel (1990–1996)
 * Hawaii's NewsChannel (1996–2010)
 * Hawaii's News Leader (2010–present)

Current on-air staff
<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Anchors


 * Jai Cunningham - weekday mornings "Wake Up 2Day" (5-8 a.m.); also reporter
 * Olena Heu - weekday mornings "Wake Up 2Day" (5-8 a.m.); also reporter
 * Kirk Matthews - weekday mornings "Wake Up 2Day" (5-8 a.m.); also reporter
 * Ron Mizutani - weeknights at 5 p.m.; also reporter
 * Joe Moore - weeknights at 5:30 ("Hawaii's World Report"), 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Marisa Yamane - weekends at 6 and 10 p.m.; also reporter

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">KHON 2 Weather


 * Justin Cruz - Chief Weather Anchor; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Trini Kaopuiki - Weather Anchor; weekday mornings "Wake Up 2Day" (5-8 a.m.)
 * Kathy Muneno - Weather Anchor; weekends at 6 and 10 p.m.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Sports team


 * Kanoa Leahey - Sports Director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
 * Rob DeMello - Sports Anchor; weekends at 6 and 10 p.m.; also sports reporter

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.5em; ">Reporters


 * Jessica Gellert - general assignment reporter
 * Gina Mangieri - general assignment reporter
 * Manolo Morales - morning reporter
 * Tammy Mori - morning traffic reporter
 * Andrew Pereira - general assignment reporter
 * Brianne Randle - general assignment reporter
 * Vanessa Stewart - general assignment reporter
 * Jason Yotsuda - traffic reporter

Former on-air staff

 * Rod Antone - reporter
 * Bernadette Baraquio - morning anchor/reporter
 * Bill Brennan - reporter
 * Marvin Buenconsejo - reporter
 * Lee Cataluna - reporter
 * Emily Chang - reporter
 * Nelson Daranciang - reporter
 * Kimi Evans - weekend weather anchor