TV channel
to provide convention
information

The new hotel station also
will offer details on isle attractions
and show advertising

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Starting with the 30,000-attendee American Dental Association convention next month, conventioneers coming to the islands will have their own television channel.

CTV -- a joint venture of Network Media, a local publishing and tourist television business, and Oceanic Cable -- will bring convention information, details of Hawaii's attractions, and advertising to conventioneers' hotel rooms.

CTV was developed by Mark Jensen, creator of touch-screen video information kiosks at tourist shopping malls and the electronic city hall information booths, and Peter Gellatly, publisher of specialized tourist magazines and books for the Sheraton, Hilton and Outrigger hotel chains and give-away tourist publications such as the pocket-size "The Best of Oahu."

Gellatly's Network Media company also owns the Waikiki News and works closely with the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau and the state government on publications to attract overseas visitors and investors to Hawaii.

"The HVCB considers 'Convention Television' a critical component of its convention marketing," Gellatly said yesterday. The creators aren't ready to televise actual convention but that could come in the future, he said.

Network Media's experience with hotel-room video proves that guests spend a surprising amount of time watching the programs, he said. The KOTV channel, Network Media's main in-room cable station on tourist attractions, regularly has visitors watching it for 45 minutes at a stretch, Gellatly said.

The delivery is made possible by Oceanic Cable's "hotel trunk," which brings specialized cable television to 30,000 hotel rooms in Waikiki.

Japanese visitors enjoy seeing news from Japan, he said, as well as Japanese-language tourist shows hosted by Alice Inouye, who also does adventure shows in which she leads the way in such activities as sail-surfing and rock climbing.

Jensen said the programs for the dentists, which he calls ADA-TV, amount to the conventioneers having their own TV station for the five days they are on Oahu, Oct. 9-13.

It will be packed with information, he said, including such fundamentals as how to return a rental car and where to buy flowers.

Gellatly and Jensen said the neighbor islands also will get their share of publicity.

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Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau