Two KGMB staffers to join larger stations
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor
KGMB news staffers Ross Shimabuku, weekend sports anchor and reporter, and Ku'ualoha Taylor, weather anchor, are leaving the CBS affiliate to join stations in larger broadcast marketplaces next month.
Shimabuku's last night on Channel 9 will be Tuesday. He reports to duty at KTBK-TV in Phoenix, Ariz., an independent station, on Aug. 27.
Ross Shimabuku will join a TV station in Phoenix, Ariz.
Ku'ualoha Taylor is jumping to a CBS station in San Diego.
Taylor, whose last day at KGMB will be Aug. 17, joins KFMB, a CBS station in San Diego, starting Sept. 4.
Shimabuku and Taylor said their departures are not linked to the sense of uncertainty facing KGMB news staffers, the result of the station's having been acquired by Emmis Communications Corp.
Emmis also owns and operates KHON-2, the Fox affiliate here, and Federal Communications Commission regulations forbid one owner operating two top-ranked stations in a single market, so the future of the station has been in question.
"I had the right opportunity, one I couldn't pass up," said Shimabuku, who will be a sports reporter. "It's familiar territory, since I went to school there and graduated from Arizona State. And the station is in the No. 17 marketplace."
He will have completed a year at KGMB on Tuesday.
Taylor will be doing weather on an extended morning news show in San Diego.
"I will have to get up early, when it's dark, but will be done when the sun's still out," she said. "It's an incredible opportunity, at a station that's No. 25 in marketplace size."
She said she is torn about leaving her birthplace, but "I will take along the aloha spirit to San Diego and hopefully come back here when I have more experience."
She has been with Channel 9 for three years.
