After more than a year of work, Edgy Lee launches in June Pacific Network.tv – an internet-based network featuring a Native Hawaiian theme.

New network reaches way beyond the reef

By Liza Simon / Ka Wai Ola

The old adage to “think local and act global” is getting kicked up by Pacific Network.tv, which launches this month after a soft launch in May – to beam nine distinctive channels of Hawai'i-based content on to computer screens around the world. This is Hawai'i's first internet-based television network and it is the brainchild of noted Hawai'i filmmaker Edgy Lee.

Lee conceived of the network as a compelling and candid cyberspace stage for media portraits by Hawai'i-based creators about Hawai'i. Of course, Pacific Network.tv is meant to entertain audiences from Papakōlea to Paris, but it will also go a long away toward dispelling persistent stereotypical images of life in the Hawaiian Islands: “In distributing my own films about Hawai'i to global markets, it's been my experience that so few people know about the true Native Hawaiian culture and the struggle to perpetuate that culture,” said Lee.

To ensure that the new platform for Hawaiian media is not obstructed the commercial bias of outsiders, Lee's Pacific Network.tv relies heavily on local underwriters and sponsors. OHA is one of the founding underwriters of the enterprise. Other Hawai'i-based local investors or partners include KGMB9, Hawai'i Public Radio, the local affiliate of TimeWarner Telecom and the Hawai'i Tourism Authority. “Volunteers” can support the network by pitching in annual dues of $35. In the meantime, the network's compendium of small and big screen images – from photography to feature films – all with Hawai'i ties, is free to the public on Pacific Network.tv.

“Many people who have never set foot in Hawai'i are on average about 75 years behind in their impressions of what goes on here, so imagine the change when they see news events streamed live,” said Lee.

The new network will also include channels that feature interactive programs like “Local Justice,” where retired judge and current OHA Trustee Boyd Mossman and KUMU radio personality Frank B. Shaner ask viewers to become jurors in deciding the verdict of a hypothetical legal case. In yet another nod to a younger audience, another channel will invite viewers to upload songs and videos.

The network also offers writers, producers, and media artists of all kinds in Hawai'i the opportunity to continue doing the work they do in the place they call home while also reaching out to audiences far beyond Hawai'i, said Lee.