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GOOD MUSIC, GOOD FOOD AND NONSTOP FROLICKING ARE THE IMAGES MANY PEOPLE conjure up when they think of New Orleans. The Big Easy ranks among the top tourism destinations in the country; some 11 million visitors pour into the city each year to attend conventions, trade shows and a growing schedule of festivals, led by the worldfamous Mardi Gras celebration. The city recently completed an extensive expansion of its convention center. More than 200,000 people were expected to attend the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, a 10-day event that concluded yesterday.
Aside from all the fanfare, however, there is a troubling misconception by out-of-towners that New Orleanians do little more than party, says Jimmie B. Phillips, vp and general manager of WWL-TV, Belo Corp.'s CBS affiliate in the market. On the contrary, Phillips says, "when you live here, you work here-when you visit, you party."
Located in southeastern Louisiana on the Mississippi River, New Orleans is 110 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. New Orleans' strategic location has made the city a key commercial port, particularly for the oil industry.
On the northern outskirts of New Orleans across the 26-mile-long Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, Mandeville is a fast-growing bedroom community of the Crescent City, with relatively plentiful lower-cost housing. Metairie, Harahan and Kenner are thee other rapidly growing residential communities on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish, as is LaPlace in St. John the Baptist Parish.
New Orleans and its local media are heavily influenced by the market's ethnic diversity. African Americans make up 29 percent of the market's population, more than double the national average for the top 50 markets, according to Scarborough Research (see chart on page 50). The market's Hispanic population, currently at just 5 percent according to Scarborough, also continues to grow.
Weather patterns have a major effect on local media in New Orleans. With the region's scorching heat and humidity in the summer (many homes do not have air conditioning), television HUT (households using television) levels typically plummet much lower in New Orleans than in other markets. As a result, New Orleans media is largely dominated by radio during the summer months, according to local media buyers.
Among recent changes in the country's No. 42-ranked...