Hawaiian Telcom, Raycom settle TV talks

Hawaiian Telcom and Raycom Media, owner of Hawaii News Now, reached an agreement Monday to continue carrying channels KGMB (CBS) and KHNL (NBC) on Hawaiian Telcom TV’s channel lineup.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Raycom, and are proud of our efforts to fight on our customers’ behalf for reasonable rates,” Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman Su Shin said.

The pay-TV provider, which has roughly 34,000 TV subscribers on Oahu, said last month that if a new agreement or extension was not reached, it would be forced to pull channels KGMB and KHNL off the air at midnight Dec. 31. The two sides subsequently extended their deadlines twice before reaching the agreement.

TV providers, including cable, satellite and telecom, pay retransmission consent fees to broadcasters to carry their signals. According to the American Television Alliance, these retransmission disputes have led to four blackouts in Hawaii since 2012. To date, Hawaiian Telcom has successfully reached agreements with cable networks and broadcasters and avoided blackouts.

Delta passes United to be No. 2 U.S. airline

Delta Air Lines Inc. passed United Continental Holdings Inc. to become the second-largest airline in the U.S., topping its rival for the first time since a series of mergers transformed the industry landscape.

Delta now sits behind only American Airlines Group Inc. as the country’s biggest carrier by traffic, a common gauge of carrier size, according to the airlines. Some of Delta’s gain may be chalked up to challenges faced by United in its merger with Continental Airlines, said Adam Hackel, an associate analyst at Sterne Agee CRT.

“The reality is, Delta offers better service and a better product than United,” Hackel said. “My first thought was people probably prefer to fly Delta now.”

United recorded 208.6 billion revenue passenger miles, an industry yardstick of traffic that multiplies the number of passengers by the distance flown, the company said in a statement Monday. Delta recorded 209.6 billion revenue passenger miles in 2015, the Atlanta-based carrier said last week. Airline traffic is a common way to measure size. Others include revenue and passenger count.

Arch Coal files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

NEW YORK >> Arch Coal, which has been hurt by the weakening demand for coal, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday. The coal industry is struggling as electric power companies shift to using natural gas, which costs less than coal and produces less pollution. Other coal companies have filed for bankruptcy protection recently, including Alpha Natural Resources Inc. and Patriot Coal Corp.

Irish drugmaker offers $32B for Baxalta

TRENTON, N.J. >> Irish drugmaker Shire PLC’s second attempt to buy Baxalta looks more likely to succeed, with Baxalta’s board backing the sweetened offer of $32 billion in cash and stock. If the deal goes through, the combined company would be one of the world’s top 20 drugmakers by revenue and a leader in the niche of rare-disease medicines.

Treatments for rare diseases — those affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans — are a hot, very lucrative research area, with drugmakers testing hundreds of medicines in clinical trials. The surge is driven by a combination of tax breaks, the lure of ultrahigh drug prices, scientific advances such as the mapping of the human genome and advocacy groups for patients raising money to entice small drug developers to research treatments for their condition.

AT&T offering unlimited data phone plan

NEW YORK >> AT&T is once again experimenting with offering unlimited data plans to smartphone customers while promoting its DirecTV service, signaling a potential reversal of industry trends toward data caps and charges for big video watchers.

AT&T is trying to capitalize on its $48.5 billion purchase of DirecTV last year. On Monday it announced an unlimited data plan for cellphones, if customers also get DirecTV or AT&T’s home-TV service, U-verse.

The unlimited data deal may be cheaper than AT&T’s limited-data plan if a customer’s family watches a lot of video and wants cable; if it’s one person, sticking with the existing plan is likely a better value, especially if that customer doesn’t want cable.

On the Move

Starwood Hotels & Resorts in Waikiki has announced that Sherri Thadeus has been named account director of groups for the hotel and resort. Thadeus previously served as regional director of accounts for the Hawai‘i Convention Center/Meet Hawaii, where she developed new business leads in markets on the East Coast.

Xerox Hawaii has named Warren Antiola and Fermo Escalona as customer service engineers at the firm’s Maui office. Both employees previously served as technology service specialists for Ricoh Business Solutions. Antiola also operated and owned J-808 on Maui, a wholesale Internet merchandiser business.