[Imc] Octopus bought out by SAGA?? Ow.

[Maiko Covington]

Hiya.

	So WILL is saying the Octopus has been bought out by
SAGA Communications (www.sagacommunications.com). Supposedly this
arrangment will let them do cross promotion between the Octopus and
the various SAGA owned radio stations (adult contemporary in particular)
in town, and they intend to have more "balanced" coverage now.
They own WLRW, WKIO, and WIXY.  As a FORMER WKIO listener, I can tell
you the change SUCKS (hence the word "FORMER").

	They own tons of stuff, to wit:

"Saga currently owns or operates broadcast properties in 18 markets,
 including 34 FM and 21 AM radio stations, 2 state radio networks, 1 farm
 radio network, 4 TV stations and 2 LPTV stations."

	From their web page, describing the myriad of stations:

"In operating its stations, Saga concentrates on the development of strong
 decentralized local management, which is responsible for the day-to-day
 operations of the stations in their market area and is compensated based
 on their financial performance as well as other performance factors that
 are deemed to effect the long-term ability of the stations to achieve
 financial objectives."

	Sounds pretty Pessimistic to me.

	All I can say is, thank goodness the public i is here.

	Maiko Covington