Mainstream journalism hasn’t had a lot of success stories in recent years, but Seacoast businessman Bill Binnie was in the center of one: The rebirth of competitive television news in New Hampshire.

This fall, Binnie launched what is branded the NH1 News Network out of a spanking new studio in Concord, inside a refurbished century-old school that he bought from the state in 2013 for $900,000. It holds broadcast studies for some of the 18 radio stations he owns in the state, but also a state-of-the-art TV newsroom.

The Sept. 15 TV news launch – rushed to take advantage of all the political commercials being bought in the runup to the November election, to the point that broadcasts began before the website was ready – was the culmination of a media strategy that began in 2011 when Binnie bought the TV station formerly known as WNDS. He followed that in 2012 with the purchase of 16 radio stations formerly owned by Nassau Communications.

Binnie changed the TV stations call letters to WBIN, after his last name, and set out to establish a news operation. The station, which still broadcasts reruns and other non-news programming from its Derry studio, now runs newscasts out of the Concord facilities on weekdays at 5, 5:30, 6 and 10 p.m., and weekends at 10 p.m. There is also a news website at NH1.com.

WBIN remains dwarfed by WMUR, the state’s dominant TV entity almost since its launch in 1954 – WMUR won the debut 6 p.m. broadcast 42,000 households to 8,000, according to Nielsen ratings – but it scored a public relations coup when it hosted high-profile debates between candidates for the U.S. Senate and House, and the governorship.

Binnie first came to prominence as chairman of Carlisle Plastics Inc., which was sold to Tyco International in 1996. He is president of Carlisle Capital Corp., an investment and venture capital company, and owns the Wentworth by the Sea Country Club in Rye.

He is probably best known for his 2010 run for Republican nomination for the U. S. Senate, which he lost to Sen. Kelly Ayotte of Nashua.

Binnie has said in interviews that his Senate run convinced him more competition was needed in New Hampshire television news and spurred the creation of NH1.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@GraniteGeek).