TheBuzz
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grows at KHONKHON-TV will re-expand its morning news show beginning Monday; it will start at 5 a.m. instead of its current 5:30 kick-off.
It is another of the changes under the nearly six-month watch of Rick Blangiardi, Hawaii market senior vice president for Emmis Communications Corp., the Indiana-based media conglomerate which owns KHON and KGMB-TV.
The show previously ran until 9 a.m. but Blangiardi cut the last hour not long after taking his management position in September. "It's not a news hour," he said.
"KITV 4 News This Morning" with Paul Udell, Jill Kuramoto and Ben Gutierrez airs from 5 to 7 a.m. KHNL's "News 8 Today" cut back its start time to 5:30 a.m. in April when anchor Barbara Wallace rejoined the station. Vice President and General Manager John Fink said at the time the limited audience available for that half hour "brings the whole two-hour (ratings) number down."
At KHON the change brings to 15 hours the output of a show responsible for more than half of the 27 and a half hours of news the station does per week, Blangiardi said. The count includes Sunday night's half-hour "Hawaii Sports Final."
Kirk Matthews and Tannya Boyd have been co-anchoring the show but the vacationing Bernadette Baraquio returns Monday.
Of the earlier start Matthews said, "It's something we've wanted to do for a long time. Rick and Wally (Zimmermann, morning news executive producer) looked at the lead-ins one day ... and it didn't make any sense." KHON, a Fox affiliate, aired a variety of programming prior to the morning news, Matthews said.
"Part of it, in all honesty, is the competitive thing," he said. "I really do believe people go to sleep with their TV set on Channel 2 when Joe (Moore) gets done at night and we want to be sure we're there for them when they turn it on in the morning."
KHON's new news director, Dan Dennison, is to report for duty Feb. 1. That may precipitate more changes in Hawaii's top-rated news room.
"It's all about getting the right people on the bus," Blangiardi said.
Separately, there has been a murmur about a big meeting scheduled for mid-month. Blangiardi plans no major announcements, he said, telling TheBuzz it will be a quarterly informational meeting for staff about budgets and operational matters.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin.
Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached
at: eengle@starbulletin.com