St. Tammany parish is the fastest-growing parish in the state of Louisiana. And its been growing even before Hurricane Katrina. With an estimated 267,000 people living in the parish, could the population support new media outlets in St. Tammany parish? The parish barely comes up on the local news unless a major story breaks. Even with a northshore bureau, WWL-DT barely reports on the parish.
In an email interview with ControlAltTV, Jan Liggett, publisher of Covington Magazine, is convinced that the northshore can support media outlets like themselves.
”The northshore can absolutely support media outlets like the Covington magazine. The northshore is just starting to explode at the seams with new business”, Liggett said via e-mail. The magazine is also in the process of establishing themselves online with the launch of their new website.
Some were formed after extra-ordinary events. St. Tammany News, a merger of the Slidell Sentry-News and the Covington News-Banner, was formed after Hurricane Katrina struck the region in 2005.
Even with the exploding population, some media outlets faced problems reaching the populous.
WGSO-AM switched formats from business news to talk radio exclusively dedicated to issues that face the northshore, dubbed the “Voice of the northshore”. Unfortunately, a weak signal from the broadcast tower in Metairie killed the format. Radio station 106.1FM tried numerous formats from alternative to country to classic rock to adult contemporary. Even with a strong signal on the northshore, the station marketed themselves to metro New Orleans, which was either weak to almost impossible to get.
With the rough economy, there are new media outlets forming. northshorelinks.com is the newest media outlet to test the northshore market. It’s success will be determine in the years to come.
As the well-establish media outlets leave the northshore out of their daily briefings to the masses, new media outlets are filling the void. It’s up to the population to determine their success.
(Editor’s note: We asked WWL-TV, St. Tammany News and northshorelinks.com for comments about this story and they did not return for comment at press time.)