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NOTHING COULD BE more appropriate than television's KHNL Channel 13 beginning its broadcasting day with a cartoon called "Underdog." Competing against Honolulu's well-heeled network affiliates -- KGMB Channel 9 (CBS), KHON Channel 2 (NBC), and KITV Channel 4 (ABC) -- the small, independent VHF station has been the perpetual runner-up. "When you're number four, you're into guerrilla warfare," admits KHNL Channel 13 general manager Rick Blangiardi, whose station has decided to arm itself to the hilt with new equipment, personnel, and programming in order to pick off some of the networks' audience share.
Since his arrival at Channel 13 in January 1984, Blangiardi, a former KGMB general sales manager and University of Hawaii football coach, has talked station owners into investing more than $2 million to revamp the station. On the surface, his aggressive style seems to have paid off: 1984's advertising billings rose 48 percent over '83, from $2.5 to $3.7 million -- still small potatoes compared to the network affiliates' annual billings of $12 to $16 million. After seven years selling KGMB spots, however, Blangiardi says he knows the kind of sales growth KHNL has experienced is unusual in the Honolulu market. Yet, Channel 13's profit last year was much less impressive. The station spent all the extra money -- and more -- on its improvements.
Initially, KHNL also increased its "sign-on to sign-off" share (the industry's accepted indicator of overall viewer trends which average all ratings and shares in the 1,-hour period between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m.). Last May, KHNL had risen from an eight share in the February 1984 ratings period (nearly 8,000 homes) to a 10 share in May (about 2,000 additional households). Although the networks' shares were significantly larger, they weren't registering the same kind of gains. In May, only KGMB maintained its 26 share (about 28,000 homes), while KHON declined to 25 and KITV fell to 22.
But KHNL's increase was short-lived. In November '84, KHNL dropped back to a nine share, while KGMB and KHON each improved by two percentage points. "We were just stabilizing," says Blangiardi.
Nowhere to go but up. Although the station had generated a small profit at the end of '83, Channel 13 had been running in the red ever since its...