Media markets and bargin bins

You may recall I met a handsome local news reporter this Christmas who wasn't all that thrilled about moving to Nashville for the job as it was, well Nashville. Now in professional TV terms, Nashville is a good-sized market serving middle Tennessee and Kentucky. As a world-traveled, gay man, he'd rather be in a hipper market like Atlanta. But both Nashville and Atlanta have the same sort of social-hipness issue: there's the metropolitan area, and the rest is rural boondocks. And as news people, you've got to cover the boonies too, despite the fact that residents there think that Prada is that commie newspaper.

If he had returned my calls, I might have e-mailed him this morning to let him know that landing a job as a television news reporter in Nashville isn't all that bad.

He could be working at News 7 in Virginia ("Your Hometown Station"), whose breaking news is Virginians oppose cockfighting.

And even then, it's only 79% of them who are "aginnit." Does that mean that just over a fifth of the people in Virginia are in favor of cockfighting? Yipes.

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Update:
I am not making this up.
These are the "Top Headlines" right now:

• Urn and ashes recovered by police
• Customers brave the cold to get free hamburgers
• Lynchburg woman appears on The Price is Right
• Fire damages Roanoke seafood restaurant