Milepost 400

This is my 400th regular blogpost since starting this blog shortly after the launch of "Sunrise on KGMB9" in September of last year. Thanks for reading it, and I promise to continue posting sometimes lengthy articles most days. This week is a milepost for me in another way as well -- my public television show "Everybody's Business" is going off the air, and the final episode will be Friday night, Dec. 26. The recession has cut into ad revenues and underwriting income at television stations both commercial and public -- KGMB9 personnel have rearranged their work scheduled or simply worked harder to cover several unfilled vacancies. At PBS Hawaii, cost-cutting meant moving me from a free-standing program that took a dozen people to produce, to being a contributing editor in Dan Boylan's Thursday night show "Island Insights." Because this is happening during an economic crisis, I expect that "Island Insights" will cover the same economic issues I would be handling on my old show. I could be discussing the same stuff on a different night. We'll see. "Everybody's Business" started as "PBN Friday," which premiered July 1, 2005. For its entire run it was half an hour long, airing Friday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and taping Friday mornings at 9:15 a.m. The original concept was to rely heavily on video from KHON and news that I developed while on the clock at Pacific Business News. Both organizations were heavily involved in reviewing audition programs. But once the show aired, it stopped using spot news video and relied less and less on PBN content as we devoted more time to guests. The show wound up supplying me with breaking news to write up for the newspaper rather than the other way around. In its final year we went from four interviews to three, and booked more economists and bankers, so we could explain the week's news in the banking crisis. It became, perhaps, less snazzy, but more urgently relevant. I'm glad still to have a relationship with the nice people at PBS Hawaii, though I will miss a program whose week-to-week make-up was entirely left to me.