The Hawaii News Now trio of KGMB-TV, KHNL-TV and KFVE-TV; KITV; PBS Hawaii; and Oceanic Time Warner Cable all won Saturday at the 39th annual Northern California Area Emmy Awards. The largest honors went to HNN and KITV.

HNN's biggie was the News Excellence award for overall news operations, and it bears the names of News Director Chris Archer, Assistant News Director Christi Young and Assignment Manager Brenda Salgado.

KITV won the Emmy for best evening newscast for a show anchored by Pamela Young and Gary Sprinkle. The award lists Executive Producer Rob Machado and Karisa Ramolete-Hayashi, producer, for an October broadcast focused on the Samoa tsunami.

HNN trumpeted its three wins in a memo issued yesterday, which noted it was also Archer's birthday. He's L.A.-bound at month's end for a media consulting job.

The stations' shared services agreement was announced in August and had three disparate stations and two formerly competing newsrooms consolidated by October, which has drawn a regulatory challenge pending before the Federal Communications Commission.

“;I'm so proud,”; said Rick Blangiardi, KGMB and KHNL general manager, who attended the ceremony. “;There was so much tied to what we were trying to do with the news operation ... and given the quality of the competition, (the wins are) terrific,”; he said.

A text from a friend at the event alerted KITV News Director Genie Garner to the win, said President and General Manager Mike Rosenberg.

“;The best evening newscast is a pretty big deal — it's one of those highly coveted awards,”; he said.

Former KHNL anchor Diane Ako, also a nominee, was among the presenters for the evening.

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For a full list of nominees, please click here. For just the winners, click here.

Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Reach her by e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).