WTAG-TV?

[Kevin Vahey]

Worcester was a thriving radio market up until 30 years ago. WTAG,
WORC, WNEB and WORC all did well.

People forget that Worcester was the second largest city in all of New England.

The city tried many things, such as the downtown mall that failed and
the Centrum that worked for awhile. The airport was and is a disaster
which is sad because in another location it could be as big as
Providence or Manchester as a regional airport.

The Turnpike by-passing Worcester didn't help and is similar to how
Philadelphia suffered when the NJ Turnpike was built. To this day
Philly drivers have no direct slam dunk route to NYC.

Providence was perhaps worse off than Worcester but turned things around.

Who knows what the NY Times will do with the T&G. I suspect they may
fold it and publish a Central Mass edition of the Globe if they can't
sell it.

Had WTAG-TV launched you can only wonder what the landscape would be
like today. If they had become a NBC affilate which given the strong
relationship TAG had with NBC I suspect that as ownership rules
changed NBC would have bought the station and when channel 4 became
CBS in 1995, NBC would have made a move similar to what happened in
San Jose-San Francisco.