March 2011

In October 2009, a Shared Services Agreement (SSA) among three of the five television stations in Honolulu, Hawai’i went into effect. As a result of the SSA, three stations, KIVE, KHNL and KGMB combined their news operations as a new entity entitled Hawai’i News Now. Even before the SSA became a reality, there were serious concerns expressed by local citizens regarding the effect such an arrangement would have on the diversity of news in the market. Media Council Hawai’i (MCH), a local non-profit organization, filed a complaint and a request for emergency relief with the Federal Communications Commission to stop the implementation of the agreement. MCH contended that the SSA would negatively affect the content, diversity and competition of the Honolulu television market. The SSA owners argued, on the other hand, that television news in the DMA would be improved.

This research, Local TV & Shared Services Agreements: Examining Content in Honolulu, essentially tested those propositions. It was a content analysis of the daily newscasts of all five of the television stations in the Honolulu DMA and a comparison of their newscasts before and after the Shared Service Agreement went into effect. What was the result of the analysis? The short answer is that the implementation of the Shared Services Agreement had a profound effect on the local news broadcasts in the market. The most significant finding is that two stations that were part of the three-station SSA group simply duplicated their newscasts through the mechanism of a simulcast.

Financially strapped KCET-TV is in talks to sell its landmark Sunset Boulevard studio to the Church of Scientology, according to people who know about the pending deal.

The Los Angeles television station, which is struggling to rebuild viewership after its recent split from PBS, plans to move its operations to a smaller location, real estate brokers said. Station officials have been touring potential sites, brokers said. Terms of the potential deal were unavailable, but the 4.5-acre property at 4401 W. Sunset Blvd. has an assessed value of $14.1 million, according to county records. The lot, which has served as a studio since 1912, was formerly the home of Monogram Pictures and Allied Artists. Scenes for dozens of notable films were shot there over the years, including "El Cid" with Charlton Heston, John Ford's "Hurricane" and the Charlie Chan mysteries.

Defense Department and federal transportation officials are expressing concern that wireless startup LightSquared's proposed mobile broadband service will interfere with GPS devices vital to military operations and aviation safety, and they are calling for a "comprehensive" study of the issue.

In a joint letter to the Federal Communications Commission, Deputy Defense Department Secretary William J. Lynn and Transportation Department Deputy Secretary John Porcari said that they haven't been sufficiently included in the FCC's review of LightSquared's GPS interference issues. GPS users are concerned LightSquared's service could knock out their systems because LightSquared is proposing to operate on spectrum frequencies that are very close to those used by GPS services. The Defense and Transportation departments "strongly advise that a comprehensive study of all the potential interference to GPS is needed," they wrote in the March 25 letter. "The new LightSquared business plan and the new FCC rules significantly expand the terrestrial transmission environment, increasing the potential for interference to GPS receivers."