Media

Charlotte’s traditional media landscape, once dotted with intriguing outlets and colorful characters, has become a bit homogenized in the new millennium. Long gone are favorites like weekly newspaper The Leader, and AM radio station Big Ways, both owned by renegade Stan Kaplan, who once buried a large cache of money in town and had thousands following his cryptic clues to its whereabouts and digging holes all over the Queen City.

Change has certainly come to the 25th-largest media market in the United States with 2.6 million people, and much of that is being driven by the electronic age. Our daily newspaper, The Charlotte Observer, is shrinking and putting more resources into its online efforts, while our primary cable system provides a 24-hour local and regional news channel. Local television news devotes copious amounts of time to the weather, while once-robust sports departments are relegated to a minute or two to attempt to cover a growing major-league sports market. Once popular publications like the Lake Norman Times, Ballantyne Magazine, Charlotte Taste, and the right-leaning Rhinoceros Times have gone under.

Alternatively, a wide range of niche media have surfaced, speaking to targeted audiences in new and creative ways. The Internet and wireless technology continue to alter how we access media, and that will no doubt continue. Of course some people, like yourself, will still turn to time-honored avenues like this printed guidebook to receive information.

Entries in this chapter are alphabetical by media type. Listings are located in Charlotte unless otherwise noted.