CW deal with KHON will bring 'Gilmore Girls' back to Hawaii

After being shut out of the local market, the new network CW will debut in the islands

The upstart network CW finally has found its way to Hawaii, via a digital channel of KHON. To mark the deal, the local station is scheduling special broadcasts of some CW shows for all viewers, starting tonight.

The CW, formed by a merger of the WB and UPN networks, had been shut out of the Hawaii market since its season began Sept. 20.

Yesterday, it announced it will begin bringing its shows to KHON-TV's digital arm starting on Monday. But tonight and tomorrow night, four CW shows will air on KHON beginning at 7 p.m., instead of the "Oprah" and "Dr. Phil" shows pre-empted by baseball games earlier in the day. KHON is not pre-empting FOX network programming to air CW shows.

Episodes of "The Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars" will air tonight, while "America's Next Top Model" and "One Tree Hill" will air tomorrow night.

All of the CW's regularly scheduled programs will premiere on KHON's digital channel, or KHON-DT, beginning at 3 p.m. on Monday.

A channel assignment with Oceanic Time Warner Cable is pending, according to KHON President and General Manager Joe McNamara. Officials at Oceanic did not respond to Star-Bulletin inquiries by press time.

"We assume they'll find a position for us, by the time we get to Monday," McNamara said. Time Warner "has cleared the CW in every market that I know of," either on the digital tier or the analog tier, which is something McNamara would eventually like to see for Hawaii.

McNamara would like to air the shows as sequentially as possible, since the station will not be allowed any reruns once an episode airs in Hawaii.

The programming also will be viewable without a digital-cable subscription. But doing that will require a TV with a built-in HDTV tuner or a digital set-top box, which can be purchased at several retailers, such as Sears and Circuit City, said Kenny Alcock, KHON director of engineering.

However, as it stands now, the programming will not be viewable by satellite television subscribers. KHON is carried on DISH Network and is working out a deal to get on DirecTV. KHON is also working to get the CW, via KHON-DT, carried by both satellite broadcasters.

The CW's Elizabeth Tumulty, senior vice president of distribution, was "thrilled" to make the announcement after a long negotiation with KHON and Oceanic Time Warner Cable, each trying to win the affiliation.

"There were number of reasons" for the delay in the selection, she said. "In Honolulu, all of the other over-the-air broadcast stations have long-term contracts with other networks. It was just going to take some time to try to do something different, and it did take some time to put this together," she said.

Oceanic did not offer a full-time channel for CW programming, Tumulty said. "They offered to carry some programming."

"But this will be the CW, it will be branded 24/7 as the CW Network," she said of the KHON-DT agreement.

McNamara plans to cross-promote the CW on KHON, as well.

The CW shows, targeting an 18-to-34 year old audience "complements our strong Fox lineup and opens up new sales, promotion and marketing opportunities for both of our stations and for our advertisers," he said.

Terms of the affiliation agreement are confidential, but McNamara said, "it has tremendous value, especially because it is one of the major networks."

"UPN had a value, the WB had a value. When you combine the two of them and they've really risen to the top," McNamara said.