Channeling a reincarnation

KAPAHI — Channel 26 is not just for visitors anymore — though they are still welcome to watch.

Formerly the Kauai Visitor Information Network, or KVIN, the cable station is undergoing a reincarnation, from purely visitor-related programming intended for hotel rooms to magazine-style coverage of Kaua‘i happenings for local living rooms.

“We’re not a visitor channel anymore, but we’re not saying we’re opposed to visitor eyeballs,” said Channel 26 General Manager Thor Seraphin. “We’re trying to keep it really ‘everything for everybody.’”

The channel was sold earlier this year to Kevin Hurst. Facilitating the vision is Seraphin, who has been involved in video production on Kaua‘i for 11 years.

Seraphin helped start Channel 26 even before it was KVIN, under the ownership of Pahio Resorts. Pahio created the channel for hotel and timeshare guests. It was later sold and packaged as The Marriott Channel and broadcast across Kaua‘i with similar visitor-oriented content.

“We’re trying to reach out and entertain and inform the kama‘aina … and I think we can do that in a way that’s still exciting for visitors,” Seraphin said.

Until recently, the visitor information channel featured a 24-hour loop of programming on places to visit around the island. (It was perhaps best known for referring to a map of Kaua‘i as the show moved around the island.)

That’s gone for good, Seraphin said. In its place is an hour and a half of locally produced content, mostly three- to five-minute segments. They are still operating on the continuous loop, but as the small camera crew is able to build up material and add it to the mix, they hope to transition to a normal format where the viewer can’t predict what’s coming next.

“We’ll grown into prime time local programming that we can show every night of the week,” he said.

The plan is for a mix of content. Shorter segments will be produced internally and focus on Kaua‘i people. Shows will run the gamut from golfing to yoga to fishing to whale watching. “If it’s a good story, we’ll figure out a way to tell it,” Seraphin said.

In addition, Channel 26 is scouting for long-form content — movies, shows, documentaries — from other Kaua‘i filmmakers.

Seraphin said it’ll be a few years before the channel really grows into the concept, but the biggest changes are happening right now.

“The most changes over the next few weeks that you’re ever going to see in the history of the channel,” he said.

• Blake Jones, business writer/assistant editor, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 251) or bjones@kauaipubco.com.