Here & Now now heard hither & yon

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

For public radio listeners in Maine and New Hampshire, Here & Now is now
here.  MPR & NHPR started carrying WBUR-FM's noontime magazine today.
As WBUR has carried very little in the way of strictly local programs in
recent years (I believe the schedule currently has but 3 local programs,
all on Sunday: the Marsh Chapel service, Con Salsa, and Boston
University's World of Ideas), I expected when the station put a lot of
resources into Here & Now that they'd try to syndicate it.  Sure enough,
in addition to the Massachusetts and Rhode Island stations run from BU,
WTTT Amherst (soon to be or possibly already WPNI) is on board with the
Maine and New Hampshire stations.

NHPR's classical fans lose yet another hour of music with this move, but
it's no major change for MPR, which attempted a full hour of news at
noon back in 1997.  No sooner did they get it going than MonitoRadio,
the chief source of material for that hour, bit the dust.  Since then
they've used BBC material and public affairs shows like Cambridge Forum
to fill out the hour.