Concord Media Landscape Changing

As with everything in the media world these days (including the introduction of Concord NH Patch to the community recently), there will be more changes coming to the Concord media landscape in the near future. 

Twice-monthly Voice

The Merrimack Valley Voice, a newspaper covering Penacook, Boscawen, Salisbury and Webster, recently started publishing twice-monthly editions, on the 1st and 15th of the month, according to publisher Mike Cotton.

Cotton noted in the July 1, edition, that support from advertisers and readers were the reasons he was increasing the free newspaper's print schedule. The newspaper had been publishing monthly for a little more than two years and is available for free at stores around the Capitol region. Cotton hopes to go weekly by the end of the year. 

A new Concord FM station?

After more than two years, the license for 102.3 FM, the former WKXL-FM, one of three radio stations still located in Concord, is finally being transferred to new owner Andrew Sumereau of Birch Broadcasting, in Pennsylvania, a former Nassau Broadcasting general manager.

The station has been on and off the air during those two years, occasionally streaming hard rock without commercials. Sumereau paid "$950,000, stock sale for cash," for the station, according to a March 2009 filing with Radio & Records Magazine.

The station was being run by Nassau via a LMA (local market agreement) which allows one station owner to run a station until the buyer gets approval. However, the FCC determined in 2008 that Nassau owned too many FM stations in the market and forced the company to release WWHK back to Vox in August 2008.

The 102.3 FM tower is located at the top of Rattlesnake Hill near Walker State Forest and covers metropolitan Concord. The station first went on the air in 1972, according to Wikipedia.com. Back in the early 1990s, the station offered what would now be considered light alternative - Aztec Camera, INXS, that kinda thing - before many stations in suburban communities offered the format. But advertisers weren't keen on it and the station soon started simulcasting the AM signal's news/talk format. It is unknown what Sumereau plans on doing with the station. 

Goodbye to Geordie

Geordie Wilson, the former publisher of the Concord Monitor and former Vice President of Online Strategy for Newspapers of New England, the Monitor's parent company, has taken over as publisher of the Frederick News-Post in Maryland. He started the job on July 5, and confirmed on Saturday at Market Days that he would be moving to Maryland soon.

An article on the News-Post website noted that the newspaper is similar to the Monitor. Both are family owned and operated and both have been in business for more than a century. The News-Post has about double the circulation of the Monitor, the story noted.

Wilson also publishes a blog about journalism called NewsFutureNow.com.

More changes to local radio?

Speaking of Nassau, a number of radio posting boards are reporting that one of the largest broadcast properties in New England, is in the process of trying to negotiate a buydown from its debt with Goldman Sachs, rumored to be more than $250 million.

The company owns eight radio stations in New Hampshire, including four that can be heard in Concord (98.3 LNH, 105.5 JYY, 106.3 Frank FM, and 104.9 The Hawk).

According to the boards, Nassau's CEO is looking to raise $50 million to pay off Goldman Sachs. Selling the New England stations, including ones in New Hampshire, is a part of the plan. The company hopes to be debt free by 2015.

No word yet on how this would affect the employees still working for the company or whether formats would change in the wake of the restructuring. 

Welcoming our Amherst site!

Lastly, the Patch.com family in New Hampshire welcomes an Amherst site to the fold, which launched on Friday. There are now eight Patch.com sites in the Granite State: Concord, Bedford, Portsmouth, Merrimack, Hampton-North Hampton, Exeter, Salem, and Amherst. Sites in Nashua and Windham will open soon. If you're traveling to other areas of the state, to visit family, eat out, or just enjoy another community, visit a Patch.com site beforehand, to find out all the things going on in that community. Go to Patch.com for links to our 870-plus sites across the country.