TV stations' pact draws fire - Hawaii Business

Hawaii news stations are all junk anyway. What's the difference between 5 junk news instead of 4?

Now days you are luck to get 5 minutes of hard news and then they spend the rest of the half hours on commercial and fluff.

So, will Mililani, Wahiawa, etc. finally get over the air antenna reception for K5 and KHNL? Or, will we lose KGMB's excellent reception too?

I hope these stations seek improvement and not short change the public, like K5 and KHNL has been doing since they coverted over to digital earler this year. It's a wait and see thing.

This anouncement doesn't surprise me. KHNL has not been close in competing against the other news stations from the beginning. They need KGMB due to their ratings and KGMB needs KHNL due to their aging facilities. It's a good merger but bad for the layoffs. The merger will take the best news team, reporters,and behind the cameras people. I just hope this works out and hope for the best.

Are you better off with more TV stations or fewer TV stations?

I agree with What Now, the current Hawaii news stations are just like the rest of the TV new stations, pandering to the lowest common denominator and providing "infotainment". The purpose of journalism is to inform the public, not kill their brain cells. The "forth estate" is dead. If you want news, start reading, I suggest The Economist.

Isn't this deal similar to what the Advertiser and Star Bulletin had way back that didn't really work and forced them to go their separate ways? How is this deal different from what the newspapers had. And how will it effect competition or will the news be homogenized.

Well, I guess I won't be watching local morning news anymore. I like KGMB's new now but the merge will probably screw that up.

Too bad mgmt hasn't figured out that the loss of revenue was due to the utter lack of journalism which was replaced by quick sound bytes of useless info-tainment.

I love KGMB's news team, especially the entire Sunrise crew. :)

Too bad about the jobs lost. However since revenues are down, one must do what it takes to stay afloat. That or demise.

Creative Solutions equals Unemployment.
Yes business is always famous for putting a spin on their machinations with words - how clever. Damn those CEOs & HR people are smart aren't they?

If they had a conscience they would have announced this MERGER before they enticed news anchors & meteorologists from other TV stations. But then again maybe they wanted to fill the ranks over the top, then make them all reapply for their current jobs and scramble like desperate fools. Once you settle on the "essential staff" you can remind them on how lucky they are to have a job & who is paying their medical. Just another example of balancing the books with A POUND OF FLESH my friends......
Don't say the General didn't tell you.

According to the union bashers trolling on the threads only people that are lazy goof offs will get laid off because management will only keep the good hard working people. The lazy goof offs will not be able to hold down any other job because they won't be able to handle it.

Huh wrote:

Three news stations are plenty for Hawaii. And with the internet, we have quicker access to the news. I feel for the employees who will lose jobs, but not for the on-air personalities, especially the "meteorologists". A significant waste of air time is given to Guy Hagi and Shari Shima-those two should be the first to go. Maybe having fewer stations will get us viewers better reporting and less fluff from the on-air reporters. How about giving the viewers a say on which reporters/anchors stay or go?

Yes I agree, instead of giving us humble, all business reporters like Walter Cronkite, we now are bombarded with "news personalities" who want us to raise them to celebrity status on a first name basis. JUST GIVE US THE NEWS..........

This should not really be a surprise...all the media are going through tough times AND changes...look at magazines and newspapers...I get most of my news off the internet now..TV is kind of old fashioned, so revenues are not coming in, especially in this depressed Bush/Obama economy.

Creative solutions equal unemployment.
Yes business is always famous for putting a spin on their machinations with words - how clever. Damn those CEOs & HR people are smart aren't they?

If they had a conscience they would have announced this MERGER before they enticed news anchors & meteorologists from other TV stations. But then again maybe they wanted to fill the ranks over the top, then make them all reapply for their current jobs and scramble like desperate fools. Once you settle on the "essential staff" you can remind them on how lucky they are to have a job & who is paying their medical. Just another example of balancing the books with A POUND OF FLESH my friends......

TV News?
My favs are : Guy Hagi and Shari Shima and Grace Lee- keep them! I need to find out what is going on in the ocean for my daily swim!
Beyond that I spend all my available tv time watching Princess My'yung and Lure of Wife. Is the priestess is going for the prince or the general, and is auntie really Star and will she get her man. And are those subtitles being correctly translated or am I going to find out years later that they were using much stronger language that I am lead to believe. I am hooked on those 2 and limiting the time I spend on Korean Shows. I guess that tells you something that these are the best shows available... on Hawaii TV these days.. everything else is reruns.

Local TV news is slow. Cable TV news gets the stories quicker & by the time 5P.M. rolls around here, its already OLD news..........

hope quality and in depth reporting is brought back. i want to see more investigative reporting and not a rehash of national news.

How can there not be anti trust issues involved here?

The Honolulu Advertiser beat you to the story again--by almost a month. Erika should stop protecting Blangiardi! Your TV days are done. There is not going back so quit kissing ass.

http://bizbites.honadvblogs.com/page/2/

You knew this was going down and you supressed the story. Everytime you write you always slam others and protect some. Extremely biased Engle!

They want a partnership with the Advertiser, not you, yet you continue to delay any bad press.

You took forever to report there 2 round of firings last year too. Tell it like it is Erika. It's about damn time.