KGMB retrospective

Did anyone see the KGMB self-documentary last night, hosted by Bob Sevey? Lots of clips of (mostly) local entertainment programs, some of which I even remembered.

Comments

I caught the last half hour of the program. It played like a corporate motivational video.

The incredible amount of self-congratulation was too much to take. Pretty embarrassing.

Oh, it was a vanity production, no question, but the first hour had some clips that were fun to see, I thought.

So that's the reason why I rented Y Tu Mama Tambien from Blockbuster last night!

Besides, I already saw the old clips from Hawaiian Moving Company when they put it on last Sunday's show.

All I know is, if they'd pre-empted Letterman completely, heads would have definitely rolled.

If only they hadn't chosen to air it opposite a little television program called E.R....

I was watching ER too! I suppose one of these days KGMB will either repeat it or sell a video of it.

The KGMB 50th anniversary special will repeat Sunday night Oct. 27 I believe at 10:30 PM.

I thought the show was a good retrospective to the programs aired in the last 50 years at Channel 9. The first hour focused on the early days, the children's entertainment programs (Checkers & Pogo), comedy (All in the Ohana), music programs (Island Music, Island Hearts), sports (Wrestling from the HIC), documentaries, a snippet of KGMB personalities on "Hawaii Five-0" and finally in the last half hour, the news

In the last 2 years, KGMB aired specials on "Wrestling Hawaii" and "Checkers & Pogo" which spent a full hour on each of those old programs.

Granted after seeing last nights presentation, I thought it would be a good idea if KGMB repackaged the thing and sold it on DVD. Better yet, it would be neat to own DVD copies of "Island Music, Island Hearts" programs... some were pretty good, like the one with Brother Iz.

If you saw only the news segment then, yes, it looked like a motivational video... but then again, this was a tribute to their own operation.

I only saw the last half hour of it. No, strike that. I had the last half hour of it on, but I just couldn't watch the stupid thing. Not only was it self-congratulatory, as Jon says, but it congratulated itself in that "this is a very special, special time for us and for Hawaii."

Please! Nobody questions the importance KGMB has had in Hawaii's culture, but the sappy music, the syrupy writing, and the moist eyes were just too much. First of all, while Bob Sevey may once have been a great newsman, he was undoubtedly helped by Walter Cronkite's lead-in ("Cronkite at five-thirty, Sevey at six") and by the fact that news used to be news.

What does KGMB know about news anymore, aside from what it has gathered by watching old Bob Sevey tapes?

I can just see Rick Blangiardi now, looking at the old Sevey shows, thinking, "This is all interesting, but what it really needs is an amiable Filipino Babe and daily updates on her pregnancy and childbirth."

Okay, I know the pregnancy stuff wasn't Blangiardi's fault--he came aboard after Kim had her baby--but you get my drift.

Here's what gets me the most. They scheduled this thing to run into the scheduled 10:00 news slot! Excuse me, but whatever happened to reporting the news instead of making it? If KGMB wants to toot its own horn and have "very special looks back," okay, fine, but when it goes so far as to SCHEDULE these chicken-skin fests to run right through the usual news slot, it's telling us that KGMB and its anniversay celebration are more important than the news.

And as if THAT weren't bad enough (and it's so far beyond bad enough that it can't even SEE bad enough!), they took time DURING THE NEWS to TALK ABOUT THE RETROSPECTIVE!

Gggggrrrrrrraaaarrrghhhhhhhhm! Where's that sick bag I brought home from my last airplane ride?

I'm with Stella. If I had sat through all that only to discover that they weren't airing Letterman, I would have exploded; they'd have found little bits of pissed-off me stuck to the ceiling, clinging to the walls, and coagulating in the carpet, and it WOULD HAVE BEEN KGMB's FAULT!

Gr! I was so annoyed with KGMB that I messed up the last sentence in my first paragraph. It should say "Not only was it self-congratulatory, as Jon says, but it congratulated itself in that "this is a very special, special time for us and for Hawaii" way.

This, too, is KGMB's fault!

Hmm. Somehow I don't think this is quite the response they were hoping for. ;)

Mitchell, I think preempting the Channel 9 News was the best thing they did.

That night I watched their ten o'clock news for the first time in ages. My reaction?

No comment.

mitchell posted in italics:

Please! Nobody questions the importance KGMB..... while Bob Sevey may once have been a great newsman, he was undoubtedly helped by Walter Cronkite's lead-in ("Cronkite at five-thirty, Sevey at six").....

I have to tell you guys that Walter Cronkite preceded Bob Sevey's 6 o'clock news only after the station started taping it for rebroadcast at 5:30 PM in 1976. Prior to that, none of the 3 local network stations aired a network evening news. IN the olden days that 5:30 PM news was flown in by Pan American "Jet Clipper" the same day to be shown late in the night at 11:PM, after the night's local 10:PM news. So what I am saying is that there was no network news lead in to Bob Sevey or anyone elses local news in the 1960s and early 70s.

As I recall from small kid time, re-runs of Gilligan's Island and Star Trek were the lead-ins to the 6 o clock evening news on Channel 9.

They scheduled this thing to run into the scheduled 10:00 news slot!

Yes they did... the key word is scheduled here. IF you knew that there would be no Channel 9 news at 10 that night you could have watched newscasts on 2, 4 and/or 8. I am sure market leader Channel 2 did retain most of their core audience, though I would suspect the Channel 9 special did siphon off viewers to the later newscast at 10:30.

But then what's the difference here? Both Channel 2 and Channel 9 are owned by the same company, Emmis Broadcasting. So more than likely they won a whole hour's worth of newstime at 10 and 10:30 PM.

We also have to remember the special was more so an entertainment show vs. that of a pure newscast or documentary. I think a 50th anniversary entitles a station to do something like this once every 50 years.

Wow. I'm glad I missed it. I can appreciate nostalgia for Checkers & Pogo and sure as hell miss the days when there was a heap of original, local programming, but this sounded like a tribute to (or epitaph for?) KGMB more than anything else. Give me a DVD of the shows/episodes alone and I'll be happy.

But my comment as to them preempting the news? Who would notice? KGMB has always been the dead-last choice among my family and colleagues when it comes to news reporting (although admittedly the ratings don't bear that out on a statewide scale).

We had nicknames for all the stations: KHNL was "Nintendo News." KHON was "Joe's News and Views." KITV was "Blue News." (As fans, obviously, we only made fun of their color scheme.) And KGMB was "Alternative Universe News." I swear, sometimes I wondered if the KGMB news broadcasts were being piped in from Waukesha, Wisconsin, with their story priorities and "playful banter" so out-of-left-field.

The only thing Jen and I watch KGMB news for now is their temporary weekend sports reporter, whose name currently escapes me. He's been a reporter for a while, but sitting at that desk with a tie? He's just too cute! We call him "Doogie" or "Skippy" and just want to pinch his cheeks when he comes on...

One last thing: When did KGMB become the official Oakland Raiders channel?

Occasionally CBS lists the best match up as the national game, but no matter which chump team Oakland plays they air it.

Argh! Maybe Letterman should have taken that ABC offer.

Woo-hoo! It's a battle royal, just like in Wrestling Hawaii!

Thanks, Mel, for the history lesson. I didn't become TV-conscious until perhaps the mid-to-late 70s; I had no idea about the Cronkite news being flown in like that. You know, perhaps KGMB should take a lesson from their own past--I'd watch Gilligan's Island reruns.

You're right, too, in that if I'd been more aware of the schedule, I would have avoided channel 9 entirely until Letterman came on. And I'm not saying KGMB's not entitled--I'm just saying it was poorly executed, if well-conceived.

On Ryan's comments: Just about every local sportscaster sucks big-time. At least, when it comes to reporting the national sports news. It's obvious that the most of them don't know jack about baseball (they consistently mispronounce players' names) and / or they get their ideas by watching ESPN Sportscenter.

Of course, local coverage of national sports news has become obsolete, since people who really want the news will get their best info from the Web or from cable TV; most of what we hear is just a sort of affirmation that local sportscasters know what's going on. This has resulted in MUCH, MUCH better coverage of LOCAL sports news, including video highlights of high school volleyball--even of division II schools--which used to be unheard of. It's a positive evolution, but these people's jobs are to know sports, especially if they're going to report it! In order for the whole thing to work, a viewer needs to believe that the person reporting the sports knows more about it than the viewer does. I just about NEVER feel this way anymore--Jai Cunningham and Bob Hogue are really the only guys who've done that in recent years. Oh, and Rob Fukuzaki.

Still, if someone's going to narrate highlights of the Major League Baseball playoffs, you'd think he or she (yes, SHE's just as guilty!) would take the time to learn to pronounce players' names correctly--especially when we're talking about some of the consistently excellent players in the game--people whose names are repeated OVER AND OVER during broadcasts.

[Private note to Liz Chun: The St. Louis Cardinals' second baseman's name is Fernando Vina, and it's pronounced "Vee' Nya." It's a name every sportscaster should know, and if you don't, it should be part of your job to make it a point to pick up the Sports, Inc. Baseball Scouting Report every year--it has a pronunciation guide!]

And finally, in response to Jon's Oakland Raiders observation: Hawaii affiliates have always focused on showing West Coast teams, because Hawaii is a West-Coast-Team-Rooting state. When the 49ers were going well, that's who we saw on TV every week. Remember, in the early 80s, how often we saw the Rams?

So the Niners aren't as good as they were. The Raiders have been one and two games away from the Super Bowl in the last two years, and until last week, were the only undefeated team in the NFL. It's a thing that goes in cycles, and right now, it's Oakland's turn.

As a Raiders fan for twenty-three years, I don't have a problem with it! :)

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