Local media needs support to remain alive

There is a letter to the editor on this page that explains the reasons why WQQQ 103.3 is no longer available through the NPR station WSHU out of Fairfield, Conn., and affiliated with Sacred Heart University. After nine years of carrying the WSHU programming, WQQQ is now independent once again. Will owner Dennis Jackson find another incarnation for the station? Hard to know, but for now, music is streaming over those airwaves throughout the day. And WSHU is available through online streaming anywhere one may go. 

Many of our readership will remember when WQQQ was a local radio station, and Joe Loverro and Marie Castagna, among others, were the on-air personalities who actually knew the Northwest Corner and Tri-state region well. That was when those who ran the station lived in our communities and joined Tri-State Chamber events (Marie is now on the board of the Tri-State Chamber, and has been for years).  

So there was some nostalgia for those times for listeners in this region, even over the last nine years, when there was no real physical presence for WQQQ in the area. And they liked the programming WSHU offered. But in order to keep that station going for the Tri-state region, it would have to make economic sense. Reading the letter from WSHU’s station manager, it’s clear that was not the case. 

It’s time for all of us to realize that there is no guarantee of local media surviving, especially in substantially rural areas like ours. When there were three radio stations, in addition to The Lakeville Journal newspapers and other publications, in this small market, it was expecting a lot from a small business community to support them all. Commerce operates at a certain level here, with real estate being the most lucrative sector, and that is not going to change any time soon. The limited number of businesses and organizations can only do so much in keeping local media afloat.

WQQQ disappearing from local radio waves can be seen as a wakeup call for all who want to have local media here. It was a dearth of support that created the situation where WQQQ needed to change its on-air status. 

The Lakeville Journal Company has found generous support from our readers who have contributed over the past two years to keep local journalism alive, and for that we are filled with gratitude. But it’s the same for local radio, like WHDD Robin Hood Radio 91.9 in Sharon, as it is for The Lakeville Journal and Millerton News. Support from our communities is necessary ongoing to keep us all here.

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