Re: WKNE/ WKVT Sold to Saga?

[SteveOrdinetz <steveord@bit-net.com>]

Brian Anastasi wrote:

>When Saga bought WHMP-AM in Northampton, the former WHAI-AM in Greenfield,
>and the former WAQY-AM in Springfield/East Longmeadow, they set up a
>"Pioneer Valley Network."  In a way this works and in a way this doesn't.
>The way it doesn't work is that the Pioneer Valley has all three types of
>population bases:  the dense city population of Springfield, the suburban
>feel of Northampton/Amherst, and the still (in many ways) ultra rural
>Greenfield and surrounding Franklin County.  These three areas couldn't be
>more different, and each have their own unique issues, and "uniting" them is
>strange at best.  Let's hope that Saga doesn't try extending this "Pioneer
>Valley Network" to the WKVT-AM and WKNE-AM.

Add to the mix the fact that Northampton/Amherst/Belchertown is, for lack 
of a better term, rather hippie-ish.  While that may sort of mix with parts 
of Vt, it's not too compatable with Keene.

Back in the 80s, new owners of WMUR-TV decided to market themselves as a 
regional station, with heavier northern Mass. news coverage somewhat at the 
expense of N.H.  The idea bombed badly, they underestimated the extreme 
awareness viewers had of which side of the border they lived on.  Mass. 
people weren't interested in watching a N.H. tv station, and N.H. people 
didn't care what was going on in Lowell.  My suspicion is that the same 
attitudes prevail in the Conn. River valley too.