TheBuzz
TheBuzz
News partnership boasts
cross-promotion opportunitiesKHNL-TV and KIKU-TV have announced a news partnership where KHNL will provide KIKU with two, 60-second sets of news updates at 8 and 9 p.m. on weeknights.
"We are excited to be able to extend our News 8 news brand to the strong audience that KIKU provides," said John Fink, vice president and general manager of KHNL and KFVE-TV in a statement.
"It's really a promotional opportunity for both stations," he told TheBuzz.
"They get local news and we get to expand our reach to the KIKU audience," which Fink characterized as different from the KHNL audience.
KIKU does not have a news department and it will pay KHNL an undisclosed amount for the news content.
KIKU is also likely to seek sponsors for the two minute-long news updates, which will promote KHNL's 10 p.m. newscast.
"Our goal and our hope is that we can provide this service to (KIKU) viewers by keeping them informed and hopefully they'll like what they see and make News 8 their first choice," said Fink.
At KIKU, Operations Manager Bill Daubner said, "We're real excited because it's going to give us local news coverage for our viewers that they normally wouldn't have. Plus, it'll give us a little more exposure in the islands."
On their own stations, both KHNL and KFVE will promote the news breaks appearing on KIKU, Fink said. "Conversely, KIKU will run promos through the day."
The agreement also enables KIKU to take live feeds of KHNL coverage of breaking news events.
The arrangement is troublesome to at least one media watchdog.
"This is more slippery than the Emmis duopoly," said Moya Gray, chairwoman of the Honolulu Community-Media Council. Gray was referring to the Indiana company that owns both KHON-TV and KGMB-TV under continued waivers of federal regulations.
KHNL and KFVE are also a so-called duopoly. Both are owned by Alabama-based Raycom Media Inc., the first owner of two television stations in a single market. Raycom's ownership of both stations fell within Federal Communications Commission limits.
The sale of one station's news product to another organization is also a concern to Gray, who said it differs from a consumer subscribing to a newspaper or online news service. A news organization's job is to provide information to the public in a form in which advertising can become the revenue generator. "Not the news itself," she said.
"This is an obvious result of convergence and it ends up reducing objective, diverse points of view thereby reducing important community dialog on issues affecting the quality of our lives," she said.
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