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According to the New York Times, Clear Channel Communications has accepted a buyout offer from a private investment group.

Clear Channel dominates the Honolulu radio market. The company owns several popular FM and AM radio stations in Hawaii, including KSSK, Hot 93 and Star 101.9 – see this list.

As the Times article points out, some critics believe that Clear Channel has made broadcast radio a dull medium, thanks to the company’s restrictive playlist policies. conservative talk shows, and a cookie-cuttter business model that favors standardization over localization.

The Times also points out that the company and its major owner, the Mays family, have been loyal donors to the Republican party. The Democratic majority in Congress may put the brakes on the deal.

As part of the buyout, Clear Channel will sell all 42 of its television stations, and approximately a third of its 1500+ radio stations. The radio stations that are on the block are in small markets, but it remains to be seen how the buyout will affect the Honolulu media market.

See this press release for additional information.

From the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin: We did have a tsunami yesterday. City officials asked people to stay out of the water at the beach parks, but the siren system was not activated.

The effects were dramatic, especially in Haunama Bay, but there was very little damage.

Still, it was the largest tsunami in 40 years, and one wonders if any local businesses set a disaster recovery plan (DRP) in motion. The wave was generated by an 8+ magnitude eartquake in Japan, as shown in this graphic from the Advertiser.

According to the Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaiian Telcom CEO Mike Ruley spoke during an investors’ conference call yesterday. He discussed the ongoing issues that have plagued the telephone company’s customer relationship management (CRM), order management, billing and financial reporting systems.While he admitted that HawTel customers will encounter these continuing problems during 2007, Ruley passed the buck and blamed BearingPoint, the firm that HawTel hired to integrate and update these systems. HawTel has spent over US$11M on BearingPoint’s integration project, and is seeking additional concessions. The utilitu spent an additional US$22M to rent Verizon’s old systems after BearingPoint missed a key delivery date. Yes, HawTel had to rent the same systems that BearingPoint was supposed to replace!

Utility companies live and die on CRM and billing systems. It’s much more expensive to recruit a new customer than it is to keep a current customer. It’s even more difficult to recruit a former customer when they’ve received poor service.

The average customer service call hold time is down from 28 minutes in May to under 4 minutes now, he said. The company’s goal is to have calls answered within 20 seconds.

To paraphrase Nigel Tufnel, these systems are so important to HawTel’s performance that they rate an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10.Sadly, it seems that the hold times are the “extra push over the cliff” that has driven more of HawTel’s landline customers to VoIP or wireless.

Last December, the Star-Bulletin reported on the company’s “Save the Line” campaign, which empowered HawTel employees to keep current landline customers from switching carriers. Ruley also announced yesterday that HawTel’s IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) service will not be released in December as the company had previously stated. This service would help HawTel provide a more complete bundle of consumer services, when compared with Time Warner Cable, its biggest competitive rival.

The latest financial results show that HawTel is losing this battle.