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Management officials at WABI-TV appear to be living in the past when it comes to determining when it should air Boston Red Sox baseball games. WABI decided not to air the Red Sox’ home opener Monday afternoon because it did not want to alienate its soap opera viewing audience.
This is the ’90s. Unlike the decades of the ’50s and ’60s, there are more men staying at home to take care of their children. Many of these men would certainly enjoy the chance to flip on the tube and catch a few innings of a baseball game.
WABI is televising Red Sox games after more than a 20-year hiatus as it bought the rights from Boston’s flagship station, WABU, owned by Boston University. WABI boosted the coverage of Red Sox games to 20, up from the 12 televised by the Maine Broadcasting System. It seemed WABI was committed to providing better coverage of Red Sox games, but it has stumbled out of the box in its decision to not show the home opener.
If WABI is really committed to improving Red Sox coverage for the portion of its viewing audience which does not have cable TV, then it should show some fortitude and be willing to make a tough and possibly unpopular decision. Soap opera viewers will surely survive one day without watching to discover who is getting divorced for the fifth time or who is suffering from another fatal illness.
If they can’t survive without this mind-expanding knowledge, then perhaps WABI could bump some of its syndicated repeats out of the 7 p.m. time slot and air the “daytime dramas” to give the soap opera junkies their needed dose of fantasy. If this can not be done, then the soap junkies should just tune in for the last 15 minutes of the Friday espisodes when they will learn that every story line which was aired during the week will hang unresolved and drag out into infinity.
The Sox’ home opener is one of the few times when Fenway Park is adorned with bunting. It signals the start of another quest as the Beantown heroes lure the fans into their chase for a usually elusive pennant. Fortunately, those scenes will at least be described on WZON-AM in Bangor. Radio is still a baseball fan’s best friend.
– Joe McLaughlin, BDN
It would be nothing short of inexcusable if sports fans without cable television – roughly 47 percent of the total viewers in Greater Bangor and further north – are unable to watch major sporting events such as this fall’s World Series on their TV sets.
Presently, that’s exactly what will happen because no Bangor-area TV station is a Fox Network affiliate and none have signed on to buy local rights to the broadcast.
As part of a new, five-year TV contract with Major League Baseball, Fox owns the rights to the World Series in 1996, ’98 and 2000 – plus the major league All-Star games in 1997 and ’99.
But wait, it doesn’t stop there. Rupert Murdoch has been aggressive on the TV sports scene and has also secured Fox with the rights to the ’97 Super Bowl and this spring’s Stanley Cup final.
Cable viewers have nothing to worry about, as they can watch the games on WPXT (Channel 51) in Portland.
Don’t blame Fox. Murdoch and his minions are just showing good-old American ingenuity and aggressiveness.
Through their efforts, Fox has gone from a fledgling network most famous for “Beverly Hills 90210” to a major player in the previously exclusionary “Big Three” national network club.
No, the blame should probably rest with the local guys. Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be worth their while to secure rights to as grand a national sporting event as the World Series or Super Bowl.
Yes, the cost could be high: possibly as much as $50,000 or a promise to become a Fox affiliate. But the return on the investment would also be high: local advertising dollars and promotional tie-ins could be a major boon and the station gutsy enough to ante up would be able to invoke the FCC’s cable exclusivity rule to ensure its signal would be the only one seen in the entire market.
Come on Bangor stations, someone needs to step up to the plate. It would be an error to shut out so many Maine sports fans.
– Andrew Neff, BDN
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