Ratings for top-rated Channel 2 News are rising a year after anchor Joe Moore was dethroned as the most-watched late news anchor. KHON returns on top
By Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.com
KHNL had the Olympics to thank for the ratings bump in 2002, inching it ahead of KHON.
"The Olympics skewed everything," said John Fink, vice president and general manager of KHNL and KFVE, both owned by Alabama-based Raycom Media Inc.
In subsequent rating periods in May and November, "there were those that felt that our success at 10 o'clock was due to running late and as we've now proven emphatically in February, our news is performing well because we're giving people what they want to see."
In May the station's late news received an 8 rating with an 18 share; in November it received an 8 rating with a 17 share. The program maintained that rating in February.
For the same period, KHON moved from an 11 rating with a 23 share in February 2002 to a 13 rating with a 26 share last month.
A rating equals one percent of the total viewing population. A share is the percentage of people watching television who are tuned to the show.
In July KHON joined the local news battle at 5 p.m. with anchors Leslie Wilcox and Ron Mizutani. KITV's Pamela Young and Gary Sprinkle maintained the lead in the slot by a share point over KHON.
"Every one of our newscasts is up in share from February 2002 and November 2002," said KITV President and General Manager Mike Rosenberg.
In September, KHON and KGMB received new leadership in Rick Blangiardi, Hawaii market senior vice president for Indiana-based Emmis Communications Corp.
"I'm encouraged by our performance in February but as I've told the men and women in our television stations, we have a long way to go," Blangiardi said.
Ratings for the stations' local news offerings have increased overall, adding to the combined market share of the two-station "duopoly."
The stations share footage shot by news photographers.
Media watchdog groups oppose Emmis' ownership of two top-rated TV stations over concerns about diversity in editorial voice.
Blangiardi feels the improved ratings support continuation of Emmis' ownership.
"I think this makes a strong case for our commitment to improve our operations and better serve the public," he said.
Fox and Honolulu affiliate KHON raked in strong ratings with so-called reality shows such as "Joe Millionaire" and "American Idol"; the latter was actively promoted on KHON's news programs while Hawaii's Jordan Segundo was a contestant.
CBS shows such as "CSI" and its spinoffs provided strong lead-in programming for affiliate KGMB's news.
"NBC did not have a strong book as has been the tradition due to the overwhelming nature of the contrived reality TV shows," said Fink. "That obviously impacted viewing habits and it'll be interesting to see what happens as that genre starts fading."
