Responding to economic and population growth in the midcoast, Maine’s NBC TV affiliates WLBZ 2 in Bangor and WCSH 6 in Portland said Tuesday they will open a news bureau in the area.

Former News Center 2 anchor Don Carrigan has been hired as reporter for the bureau.

Channels 2 and 6 are units of Gannett Co. Inc., based in McLean, Va., and owner of 22 TV stations, as well as USA Today and 94 other daily newspapers.

Steve Thaxton, president and general manager of WCSH in Portland, said the two stations began investigating increasing their coverage of the midcoast area a year ago.

“The growth rates in the midcoast area continue to impress us,” he said Tuesday.

Carrigan, 51, worked at both stations from 1973 to 1991 as reporter and later as news anchor at WLBZ 2, leaving that position to work as an aide to then-Sen. William Cohen.

Since 1994, Carrigan has worked for Maine Public Broadcasting as executive producer of public affairs, hosting the issues program “Maine Watch,” live call-in programs from the State House and other political forums.

Carrigan grew up in South Bristol near Damariscotta, where he and his wife, Donna, have made their home in recent years. In 2000, they moved into the farmhouse where Carrigan was raised.

Since both stations jointly produce news coverage, covering a city such as Rockland has always been difficult, Thaxton said.

“It has been untenable for us to get crews there and back in time,” he said, given that Rockland is nearly a two-hour drive from both Portland and Bangor during the summer months.

Instead of deploying reporters and photojournalists, the stations have made what Thaxton described as a six-figure investment in technology and hardware to allow stories to be filed from the area.

Use of a microwave tower in Blue Hill has been arranged, and a van with a large signal mast has been retrofitted as a production studio, he said. This will allow a reporter and photojournalist to tape and edit stories, then transmit them to the tower, where the Bangor station’s studio can in turn receive the signal and air it later or forward it to Portland.

The van also will allow for live reports.

WABI 5 in Bangor opened an Ellsworth bureau a few years ago, but does not have it staffed on a full-time basis, news director Jim Morris said. More recently, WABI opened a bureau in Waterville, where two full-time reporters and three salespeople work, he said.

Carrigan will begin Feb. 25. A location for the new bureau has not been chosen, Thaxton said.