KHON-TV


KHON-TV is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, affiliated with Fox and owned by Nexstar Media Group. Its second subchannel serves as an owned-and-operated station of The CW as Nexstar owns a majority stake in the network. KHON-TV is sister to MyNetworkTV affiliate KHII-TV and the two stations share studios at the Hawaiki Tower in downtown Honolulu. KHON-TV's main transmitter is also located downtown at the Century Center condominium/business complex.

History

As an NBC affiliate

KHON-TV first signed on the air on November 16, 1952, as the first Hawaiian television station and a primary NBC affiliate, KONA, occupying the channel 11 position. It also had a secondary affiliation with DuMont until that network's demise in 1955. The station was originally owned by Herbert Richards. Two years later in 1954, the Honolulu Advertiser purchased the station.
On October 16, 1955, KONA changed channels from 11 to 2 due to the lower VHF positions having the most powerful ERPs at the time. The channel 11 frequency now belongs to PBS member station KHET. In 1956, KONA was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, the forerunner of Combined Communications. KALU signed on in 1958, with KALA following in 1961.
In 1965, all three stations' call letters were changed: KONA became KHON-TV, with KALA becoming KHAW-TV and KALU changing to KAII-TV.
In 1973, Pacific and Southern Broadcasting decided to spin off KHON to company president Arthur H. McCoy. The move was made so Pacific and Southern could merge into Combined Communications. Between them, the two companies were one station over the ownership limit of the time.
In 1979, KHON and Maui's KAII were sold to Western-Sun Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Cowles Communications; the Hilo satellite KHAW-TV was sold to Simpson Communications, but leased back to Cowles/Western-Sun. In 1985, KHON and KAII were sold to Burnham Broadcasting as part of the Cowles family's liquidation of most of its media assets; Burnham would acquire KHAW outright the next year, reuniting the stations.

As a Fox affiliate

In March 1994, the Fox Broadcasting Company entered into a partnership with minority-owned communications firm Savoy Pictures to form a television station ownership group called SF Broadcasting. On August 25, 1994, the company bought KHON, WVUE-TV in New Orleans and WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama for $229 million; fellow sister station WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin was sold to the company one month earlier in a separate $38 million deal, which for a time, was challenged by a Federal Communications Commission petition filed by NBC alleging that the deal violated foreign investment limits for U.S. broadcasters. As part of the deal, all four stations would disaffiliate from their respective network and become Fox affiliates. Fox was slated to control the voting stock in the venture, but prior to the sale's closure in 1995, it was determined that Fox would still hold an interest in SF although it opted not to have voting stock in the company. Savoy Pictures controlled the day-to-day operations of the four stations.
On January 1, 1996, KHON-TV switched its affiliation to Fox ; the NBC affiliation moved to former Fox affiliate KHNL. Unlike the New World Communications-owned Fox affiliates that joined the network during the previous 18-month span, KHON ran Fox Kids programming on weekdays and Saturday mornings. KHON also expanded its local news programming on weekdays, seeing an increase in newscast ratings with the affiliation switch. KHON currently has the distinction of having the highest-rated local news programming of any Fox affiliate nationwide, and also declares itself as "America's No. 1 Fox affiliate", though the network's Miami affiliate WSVN makes this claim as well. Neither station mentions Fox in its logo or branding; when KHON was rebranded to KHON 2 in 2004, it became the first Fox station to ditch the network's brand standardization for its stations while it was still an affiliate. KHON is one of a handful of Fox affiliates that omit network references in their branding.
Image:KHON-TV 1996-2004 logo.jpg|thumb|left|KHON-TV 1996–2004 logo.
On November 28, 1995, Silver King Communications announced that it would acquire Savoy Pictures; as a result, Savoy Pictures and Fox ended their partnership and sold the SF Broadcasting stations, including KHON-TV, to the USA Networks division Silver King Broadcasting. Silver King, which later became known as USA Broadcasting, owned several stations on the United States mainland that were affiliated with the Home Shopping Network, which was also owned by USA Networks. The sale of KHON and the other SF stations was approved and finalized in March 1996, with its other assets being merged into the company that November.
In 1999, KHON relocated from its longtime studios on Auahi Street and moved to their current studios on Piikoi Street. Also on April 1 of that year, USA sold all four of its Fox stations to Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications for $307 million in cash and stock, as part of a sale of its major network affiliates in order to concentrate on its formerly HSN-affiliated independent stations.
A year later in 2000, Emmis purchased CBS affiliate KGMB, effectively bringing Hawaii's two oldest television stations under common ownership, though both stations retained separate operations—unlike what would become the common operational structure of most duopolies. Emmis received a cross-ownership waiver to acquire KGMB as FCC duopoly rules prohibit two of the four highest-rated stations in the same market from being owned by one company.
From September 2, 2002, to October 31, 2004, KHON carried select UPN programming via a secondary affiliation shared with KGMB; each station aired programs from that network that the other station did not air. The two stations began carrying UPN programming in September 2002 after KFVE disaffiliated from the network to become a full-time affiliate of The WB. KIKU, an independent station specializing in Japanese programming, became a secondary UPN affiliate on November 1, 2004, and remained with the network until its closure on September 15, 2006.

Sale to Montecito

On May 15, 2005, Emmis Communications announced that it would sell its 16 television stations in order to concentrate on its portfolio of radio stations. On September 15, Emmis sold KHON as well as CBS affiliate KOIN in Portland, Oregon, and NBC affiliates KSNW in Wichita and KSNT in Topeka, Kansas to the Montecito Broadcast Group for $259 million; the sale closed on January 27, 2006. The acquisition resulted in one of the rare instances in which two stations operated in a duopoly were completely separated due to Emmis owning KHON and KGMB under a waiver.
Montecito planned to replace 35 of KHON's 111 employees with automation. KHON employees first learned of the plan on January 12, when general manager Rick Blangiardi notified the staff of his intent to resign once the sale was finalized. At a station staff meeting that afternoon, SJL announced the layoffs, which would take place in two phases over the course of two months. Anchor Joe Moore announced the plan at the end of that evening's 6 p.m. newscast, and stated his concern that the change would impact the station's ability to serve its viewers. Montecito responded on January 15, assuring the public that no reporters or anchors would be affected, and the 6 p.m. newscast would be largely unchanged from the viewer's perspective.
The purchase of KHON was scheduled to close on January 26; however, Montecito was unable to complete the purchase of KHON that day, due to a mix-up in paperwork. As a result, Emmis announced that no employees would be fired as a result of the sale until at least March 31, and that Emmis would pay additional benefits to the affected employees. Moore used the last minutes of the 6 p.m. newscast, the final newscast under Emmis' ownership, to bid farewell to Blangiardi and to criticize Montecito. Among other charges, he claimed that the layoffs were tantamount to "the butchering of an already lean work force" and accused Montecito of being a "virtual company" with no physical offices. Montecito's chief operating officer, Sandy Benton, disputed the charges, saying that "what was said last night was not the truth".
Since the purchase, KHON's new general manager, Joe MacNamara, changed the scope of the terminations: instead of a number of people to fire, a salary goal was given. Eight of KHON's nine managers resigned over three days, each stating that they could not support Montecito's decision to terminate employees. The managers involved, including Blangiardi, denied that the mass exodus was planned. Montecito continued to stand by the automation plan, pointing out that most of the markets it had entered have seen ratings increases as a result of Montecito management.
On June 28, 2006, Moore appeared to take another on-air dig at Montecito's automation plan. For two weeks, a noticeable echo could be heard during the newscast. At the start of that night's 10 p.m. newscast, it prompted Moore to stop and ask the technical crew if the problem could be fixed. A visibly disgusted Moore, who then blamed the new automated system, said "We're going to go to commercial. We're going to get this straightened out because I'm fed up with this crap." When the newscast returned, the problem was fixed, and Moore resumed as normal. Moore, who was rumored to be considering leaving KHON as a result of the sale, decided to remain as the station's chief anchor. In a February 6 email sent to staff members, Moore wrote, "How could I possibly work for owners I do not respect? After much deliberation, I reached this conclusion... the owners are not KHON-2. We, the people who work here are KHON-2. I would not be working 'for the owners'. I would be working 'for our viewers', and 'with' fellow employees I deeply respect. I have decided not to let our owners drive me out of KHON-2."