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‘Good Morning America’
anchor will warm to Hawaii
-- on TV

ROBIN Roberts, news anchor for "Good Morning America," had a tough assignment last week. She had to leave freezing New York City to fulfill her fantasy of escaping winter weather for warm Hawaiian breezes on Oahu and the Big Island.

Roberts endured a private ukulele lesson with entertainer Jake Shimabukuro, an outrigger canoe ride with famed waterman and former model Hans Hedemann, a sunset luau at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and a visit to the Volcanoes National Park.

Her sun-and-fun escapades were taped for replay during "Good Morning" America Feb. 9, which many mainland viewers will see before bundling in their woolens and heading out to drive their snow-tire-festooned cars to work.

Clearly, not every Hawaii segment on every TV show around the world will draw one million more visitors to the islands.

However, Les Enderton, executive director of the Oahu Visitors Bureau, said: "We like to think that one of the most economical ways to disseminate our very diverse message to our various target markets is through media like this. We simply can't afford the advertising it would take to reach a like number of people." The bureau helped to coordinate Roberts' visit.

Roberts' adventures will hardly be the only witness-me-TV that you see in the coming weeks. Her Hawaii segments will hit the air during the Nielsen rating period, from Feb. 3 to March 2.

A lack of Univision

Contrary to a recent press statement, the nation's largest Spanish-language television network will not be carried on Time Warner Cable nationwide. Hawaii is not included in the rollout.

The agreement will send programming from Univision, its TeleFutura and Galavision Networks into millions of homes via Time Warner's analog tier, but it's not financially feasible for Oceanic Time Warner Cable to carry in Hawaii.

The deal would have required Oceanic to free up channels in its analog service and pay Univision a fee for each of Oceanic's nearly 400,000 subscribers in Hawaii, regardless of how many people would watch Univision.

"If we were in the top 40 Hispanic markets, it would make sense," said Alan Pollock, Oceanic vice president for marketing.

"It doesn't even come close to making financial sense" to make Univision programming part of Oceanic's analog service, he said.

Univision declined Oceanic's request to carry the network on digital cable, a premium service.

Oceanic's current digital Spanish package has fewer than 700 subscribers. The package, at $7 each month, includes Cine Latino, Fox Sports World Espanol, CNN en Espanol and Discovery en Espanol on channels 689 through 692.

Still, many Hawaii residents wishing to watch Univision can do so by catching the over-the-air signal of KHLU, a low-power television station, on UHF channel 60.