Leslie Wilcox Blogs

"Fit" over Local Ties in UH President Search

      Meeting in Hilo on Friday (May 29, 2009), the University of Hawaii Board of Regents spent an extended time listening to, and exploring the feelings of, two citizens who got up to speak during the initial "Public Comment" portion of a crowded agenda.

      (I attended because a new PBS Hawaii lease was up for consideration for the Manoa campus.)

      I'm glad I had the opportunity to see and hear the exchanges, which took place in a rather intimate setting and which did not attract TV news cameras.

      The testifiers, both earnest native-Hawaiian women, were outraged that the regents had narrowed their search for  UH President to two candidates without local ties. One of the women said that it's unacceptable to send a malihini, unschooled in local culture and local politics, to the Legislature to secure funding for the severely cash-strapped public university. "We need money," she admonished regents. She also criticized having so little choice for such an important position. She pointed out that when a small community college here was seeking a new leader, five finalists were presented.

       Regents Chair Al Landon said he wanted to listen as closely as possible and give as much information as regents responsibly could, because he knew the women were voicing concerns of a larger community as well. 

       For many who've expressed public opinions, the biggest emotion inspired by the finalists is dread. What if this is another expensive Dobelle-like dead-end?

      What Chair Landon and fellow regents got across is this: the number of candidates was winnowed from many to 14 very qualified applicants, some with strong local ties. One candidate withdrew. Then the field was narrowed to three finalists, who were to visit campuses for getting-to-know-you sessions. At that point, another candidate pulled out, citing discomfort with a public hiring process.

      The regents assured critics that the President selection panel has strong UH and Hawaii ties and absolutely understands the sentiment for a local connection. In the end, they said, the panel had to go with who would be the"best fit" for the UH. That trumped local creds.  The regents said they're confident that both finalists have what it takes to be a true leader for the UH system.

      The testifiers were impressed with the regents' willingness to listen and discuss, but they remained unsatisfied with the regents' Presidential search results.

The Constant Prowl for Rock-Band Names

     I've written 412 blog entries since starting this blog in late 2007--and by far, the entry that gets the most "hits" is one I wrote after watching TV one evening with my youngest daughter, Kai.

http://www.leslienotes.typepad.com/the_long_and_short_of_it_/2008/07/where-to-find-good-names-for-rock-bands.html

     A glance at my blog stats shows that there are plenty of web searches going on for good names for rock bands.

     Wonder what comes first for most inquiring minds--the band or the name?

     For my rock-loving, guitar-buff daughter, a name for a rock band is something to keep in her low-rise jeans hip pocket---just in case...

Bloody Marys, Left and Right

The lobby of PBS Hawaii is often a magical place. Here, two local women who've brought life to the South Pacific's Bloody Mary ran into each other--and I got to witness the  happy catching-up of two singing sensations.

Loretta Ables-Sayre, on the left, is taking a week's break from the Rodgers & Hammerstein revival that's still drawing packed houses at the Lincoln Center. A longtime Hawaii jazz singer,  she became a Broadway phenomenon last year at age 50. On the right, Marlene Sai, who played Bloody Mary in the Hawaii Opera Theatre production and who's watched Loretta wow the crowd in New York.

 Sai, traveling with one of Hawaii's most elegant hula dancers--pal Beverly Noa--also went backstage at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre to visit Loretta.

This week, the two singers were at PBS Hawaii for separate tapings of our weekly program, Long Story Short, which I host. I'll let you know when the programs are scheduled for broadcast!

Trying to Get Into Prison

       First time I've ever received a call from somebody trying to get into prison.

       It was none other than PBS Hawaii's VP/Content Delivery, Steve Komori.  He actually said, "They won't let me in!"  Steve, with four technicans, was being held at Hawaii Island's Kulani Correctional Facility.

        Well, he wasn't being held. He was being held off. The crew was outside the gate of the prison and needed access through the prison property to reach our translator station on Kulani (Cinder) Cone, serving Naalehu.

        Five guys in a rental van?  I can see why prison officials, in the isolated facility,  didn't fling open the gate. Instead, they kept the crew waiting while they thoroughly checked credentials and the criminal database.

         I called Public Safety Spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy in Honolulu and then Captain Guzman inside the Kulani complex.

         Eventually, Steve's formerly suspicious van was allowed in, to drive five miles deeper into the forest reserve to work on the translator station. Kulani doesn't see many TV maintence crews. We're the only broadcaster serving rural Naalehu and South Point with over-the-air TV signals.

          Haven't heard back yet from the hard-working crew. I hope they haven't been "detained."

       

North Shore's Minus Tide is a Plus

Here's a glorious glance back at the Memorial Day weekend on Oahu's North Shore.

The minus tide revealed reefs normally seen only underwater while snorkeling.

In ankle-deep water, I could walk around portions of the reef in my tabis and see sea cucumbers, eel holes, and some of the more fragile and colorful corals. 

Great conditions for tide-pooling, swimming, diving, fishing, boating--and stand-up paddlers were having a blast catching small waves. 

Photo by: Jeff Brown

For Big Island Over-the-Air PBS Viewers:

    Important notice to Big Islanders who watch PBS Hawaii over-the-air rather than through pay cable or satellite services:

     I know that this viewer-supported station is the only "free TV" received in some parts of your island. And we'd prefer that you not miss a minute of it. But upgrading the system requires us to go off-line, starting today (Tues., May 26, 2009).

    We've been reaching out in newspaper ads and our chief broadcast engineer Steve Komori's blog "Digital Dialog" ( http://leslienotes.typepad.com/digital_dialog/ ) to let over-the-air viewers of PBS Hawaii in east and south Hawaii Island know that they won't be able to see us  starting at mid-morning. We expect to restore service for Hilo residents on Thursday (May 28, 2009) and for Naalehu and South Point this weekend.

    Reason for the planned outage: We're turning off Hilo's analog signal to upgrade the system by installing a new digital antenna. This means Hilo residents will need to do a re-scan to find us and keep us in their devices' memory. Our signal will be seen as Channel 10.1 and 10.2. This requires a UHF antenna.

    Please note: Naalehu and South Point residents will still see us in analog. It'll take another installation (at our translator at Kulani Cinder Cone) to get these rural areas, which are very important to us, upgraded to digital transmission.  Installation  of a digital antenna in Naalehu is planned for the end of September this year.

     Thank you for your patience. This year,  over-the-air Big Island PBS Hawaii reception has had some rough edges, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We'll work to minimize inconvenience as we continue to upgrade. But, please know that ground-breaking digital technology, when it's beamed from translator to translator down the Big Island's east side, may provide another surprise or two.

    You may be wondering: Why is PBS Hawaii moving to digital now? Didn't the TV stations do that last January?

    Answer: The federally mandated digital transition applies only to transmitters, not the translator stations that PBS Hawaii utilizes to serve Hawaii Island and Maui County. We're set up to send our signal farther than any other broadcaster. (That's because we want to reach under-served areas that commercial stations may find unprofitable to serve.) The federal government isn't compelling us to switch to digital on the Big Island at this time--but we want to provide the same digital over-the-air service to all islands.

      If you have questions, please post online, or don't hesitate to send us a note at email@pbshawaii.org or phone Viewer Services at 808.973.1178.      

A Volunteer Luncheon--With One Condition

    When we invited our core volunteers at nonprofit PBS Hawaii to a nice lunch as a token of appreciation for all they do, they graciously accepted--on one condition. We had to take them to a restaurant that gives generous discounts to senior citizens.

    "I'm here to save you money, not be a burden," said one of them.

     They enjoyed a beautiful ocean-view buffet, eagerly comparing dishes and talking and laughing. They were delightful.

     And at the end they counted heads to make sure, politely, that the restaurant gave full credit to PBS Hawaii for all of the party's 62-and-over diners.

Curious George and Curious Jim

     Best-selling author Jim Collins (www.jimcollins.com) dedicates himself to Big Questions, such as  "How does a company go from good to great?" and "How can a company be built to last?" 

     So it's appropriate, although a little jarring, to find out that he has a familiar figure with an inquisitive mind sitting prominently and permanently in a leather chair in his Boulder, Colorado office. It's a larger-than-life stuffed-animal version of the impish chimp Curious George.

                www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/business/24collins.html

    Curious George is all about answering questions too--even though he never speaks, just chitters. George, the longtime rascally book hero, has become an animated TV hero on the #1-ranked children's show in the nation on PBS. The television series is entertaining, and while kids sit enthralled at their favorite monkey's adventures, they're learning the basics of problem-solving in math, science and engineering. It amounts to try-fail scientific inquiries from an irrepressible primate.

    www.pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/

   National surveys say this children's show is tops among kids ages 2-5 and among women with children under 3.

Hawaii TV Geometry Has Changed

     Good article in the Honolulu Star-Bull, by Kokua Line's June Watanabe, who's a journalist through and through and often hones in on subjects that could just as easily be hard-news stories.

     www.starbulletin.com/features/20090523_kokua_line.html

      It's certainly true that small pockets of Honolulu households which used to receive over-the-air TV signals from PBS Hawaii's KHET channel no longer can see us.

       This is the result of moving our KHET transmitter from Honolulu to west Oahu. Over-the-air signals are all about line-of-sight, and the angle has changed. (By the same token, some homes on the Waianae Coast and Waipahu which never could see us over-the-air can receive us now and say the digital picture is fabulous.)

       "What gives?" a Makiki man asked me. "I can see your antenna at PBS Hawaii in Manoa from my house. Why can't it get to me?" That isn't our transmitter he's seeing; it's a piece of equipment whose purpose is receiving. Our transmitter is now positioned high up a gated, narrow, four-wheel-drive-necessary road in Palehua, Makakilo.

         As June's column points out, we've asked the Federal Communications Commission to allow us to boost our power above the max currently allowed. We believe the legal maximum is insufficient. While most TV viewers on Oahu subscribe to cable service, there's still an important minority that wants to receive "free TV" in the form of our over-the-air signals. And we want to continue to serve these residents.

        PBS Hawaii's chief broadcast engineer, Steve Komori, our head of Programming Linda Brock, Viewer Services Specialist Christina Kanemoto and other specially trained staffers have spent time on the phone walking people through a re-scanning process--and a number of them found that getting us was a matter of re-setting their converter box. But not all.

       Several commercial TV stations are also experiencing the same difficulty in reaching some over-the-air viewers who used to be able to see them: KHNL, KFVE and KIKU, which also have installed their transmitters at Palehua. Soon KGMB will join the broadcasters on the ridge.

        Something similar happened when local broadcasters lost authorization to transmit from the summit of Haleakala, Maui.  In January of this year, we had no reasonable option but to re-locate way down the mountain, to the lower slopes, and this affected some of our KMEB over-the-air viewers in Haiku, Maui and Hamakua, Hawaii Island.  PBS Hawaii is also moving to boost the strength of our Maui transmitter on June 30, 2009.

"How Come You Didn't Let People Know?"

     "That was a great program you had on last night. I just lucked onto it. How come you didn't let people know?" We've heard that question quite a few times at PBS Hawaii.

       National studies find that 57% of the people who watch a public-television program have simply come upon it by flipping through the channels. 

       PBS Hawaii is a nonprofit, viewer-supported organization. We don't spend a lot of money on marketing.

       Fortunately, the programming tends to win awards and it generates some news stories, which is how Oahu blogger Andreas Arvman found us. Now, he says, "I love PBS." http://thea-zfiles.honadvblogs.com/2009/05/18/made-possible-by-viewers-like-you-and-now-me/  Thanks, Andreas.

        Other ways to find out about our programs are: 1) Receive my free weekly e-newsletter calling out special programs and providing full primetime listings. To get it, just send your email address to newsletter@pbshawaii.org  And no, we won't use your email address for anything but this programming bulletin; 2) Receive monthly program listings  and articles in our guide, available in print and in an e-magazine, for an annual tax-deductible contribution of $35 or more; 3) Watch our on-air promos; 4) Check our website, www.pbshawaii.org; 5) Read this blog, where I sometimes give a heads-up on upcoming programs, particularly locally produced shows.