A new anchor lineup will take effect March 4 at KGMB-TV, KHNL-TV and KFVE-TV, the three stations collectively called Hawaii News Now.
The end of the February Nielsen rating period will make way for the departure of anchor and reporter Teri Okita, the return of anchor Grace Lee from San Francisco, and a new daily schedule for "Sunrise" anchor Tannya Joaquin.
The so-called "sweeps" run from Jan. 31 through Feb. 27.
Okita’s contract will be ending around that time, and she has made a "life decision" to move to London, said Rick Blangiardi, general manager.
"We love Teri and are going to miss her," he said. "She’s been everything we wanted her to be," he said, adding that her recent special program on retired U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka was a "high-water mark." Feedback received from Akaka was "heartfelt," with "deep, deep appreciation," Blangiardi said.
"Winning Grace back is huge for us," said Blangiardi, who chose Lee to be an inaugural anchor for the stations’ morning news show "Sunrise," which premiered in September 2007.
Okita’s departure "triggered a couple things," the first of which was the decision to put Joaquin back in prime time, he said. Joaquin will assume Okita’s weekday anchor slots at 6 and 6:30 p.m. and will do field reporting, as Okita does now.
Lee will rejoin the station and begin reporting in mid-February, he said.
While sad to leave Hawaii again, "this is an extremely exciting time in my personal life," Okita said in a statement released by the stations. "After years of being on the road and living long-distance, I’ll finally get to settle down with my fiance."
Lee’s contract ended in mid-December, and her decision to leave KPIX in San Francisco "wasn’t that dramatic," she said, referring to a blog that reported she was leaving because she had been promised an anchor position but was then reassigned to cover politics as a reporter.
"The station asked me (to join) as a general assignment reporter and do fill-in (anchoring), so I did both," she said. "That’s what they promised and that’s what I did."
"The bottom line is, I love San Francisco, there are awesome people here and I’ve had a great time … but I wanted to come back home."
Lee took the necessary steps to make sure her dog Sunny would not have to endure quarantine "just in case" she got to return to Hawaii. The dog had her own fan following on "Sunrise."
As for the first thing Lee will eat upon her return?
"It might have to be a buffet," she said. "With some poke, ramen, Spam musubi and manapua." The manapua she gets in San Francisco is "not the same," she said.
Joaquin is "blessed" by the prospect of rejoining her former evening news colleagues and will "miss teasing my morning show family," she said. However, she "will not miss the hours. Two a.m. wake-ups with two little ones is physically exhausting," she posted on Facebook.
Blangiardi supported Lee’s desire to move to CBS-network-owned KPIX in San Francisco, then the No. 6 market, from Honolulu, then the No. 72 Nielsen market, but recalled telling her, "You’ll probably end up missing this place," he said. Lee first worked at KGMB in 2002 and returned in 2007 with a stint at Sacramento’s KCRA in between.
Okita, too, had previously worked at KGMB (from 1992 to 1996), then went on to WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., then to CBS Newspath, which provides coverage of national news for affiliate stations to use in local news broadcasts, before returning to Hawaii and KGMB in 2010.
Anchor Stephanie Lum will retain her anchor slot at 5, 5:30, 9 and 10 p.m.
