WVII’s Eric Frede hits ground running in Bangor

After the first five weeks of his stay at WVII-TV (Channel 7) in Bangor, Eric Frede is impressed by the “sports climate” of Maine, and Penobscot County, in particular.

“This seems to be a very sports-conscious area, more so than in New York,” said Frede, who came to WVII in September from Cable 6, a cable TV station in Middletown, N.Y.

“In my short time here, it seems to be a very competitive area among the news departments,” said Frede. “Everyone’s checking up on each other to make sure they don’t miss anything, and that’s to the benefit of the viewers.”

Frede has spent the last four years at Cable 6, where he was sports director. He was also the play-by-play announcer for Marist College basketball games on WKIP radio in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Why make a move from New York to Maine?

“It’s a great opportunity for me, I have more responsibility here and say in what we do, and I’m going from cable to network TV,” Frede said.

“Plus, I had been here before and I really like the area.”

In Frede, WVII gains an experienced reporter. He was responsible for a coverage area that included 32 high schools and two colleges, Marist and Army.

“I’m excited about our proximity with the University of Maine. It’s a national power in both hockey and baseball.”

Frede hails from Danbury, Conn., where he ran on the varsity track team for Danbury High School, the largest high school in the state. Frede was one of 600 in his graduating class.

The 26-year-old Frede received his television-radio communications degree from Ithaca College in 1988. At Ithaca, he worked at two college radio stations and wrote some articles for the school paper.

Frede may have received his journalistic interest from his father, Ed, who is a news editor at the Danbury News Times.

“He might have had an influence, although he never pushed me into anything. My big ambition has been to do play-by-play on national radio or TV,” he said.

Until that day, Frede will be putting all his energy into his three daily sportscasts on WVII and a possible weekly sports magazine show. He would also like to televise some high school basketball games in the future.

“I told Jim (Parisi) and Dan (Hannigan) I wanted to come in here and hit the ground running. I’m real excited about this job,” said Frede.

Prime Network recently signed a three-year agreement with the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) to broadcast eight regular-season games as part of its 17-week, game-of-the-week telecast schedule.

The agreement guarantees at least one televised appearance to each CCHA member and runs through the 1995-96 season. Prime will also broadcast both league tournament semifinal games and the championship.

Prime also televises Hockey East games – two of which involving Maine will be games-of-the-week, on Nov. 19 and Feb. 4.

The local cable affiliate of Prime is New England Sports Network (NESN). Prime will tap into NESN’s coverage of those two Black Bear games and distribute them across the country as Prime offers live and taped events to networks in every major U.S. TV market.

Turner Broadcasting System Inc., recently signed a four-year contract extension with the National Basketball Association (NBA) through the 1997-98 season.

The new contract provides for regular-season and playoff games to be televised on both Turner Network Television (TNT) and TBS Superstation (WTBS), and includes a revenue-sharing agreement.

TNT will broadcast 45 regular-season games, the NBA All-Star Weekend events, and 35 playoff games. The current contract (through the 1993-94 season) calls for 50 regular-season games.

WTBS will now have a Thursday night NBA Game of the Week during the regular season (25 games) and 10 playoff games.

As part of the new deal, TNT and NBC will be the primary carriers of the new World Championship of Basketball event in August, 1994, at Toronto. TNT will carry six games involving the U.S. team.