WMDI-FM drops Ox> Technical issues cited

BANGOR – The Bangor Blue Ox lost half of its radio network Wednesday as WMDI (107.7 FM) in Bar Harbor withdrew from its partnership with Dexter’s WGUY (102.1 FM).

“We just couldn’t put it together technically quickly enough this year,” said WMDI general manager Ed St. James in a press release. “Both parties tried extremely hard to make this happen, but in light of our other sports commitments and technical issues, we decided it was in the best interest of all involved to hold off on Blue Ox baseball.”

WMDI will still do a morning baseball show with Blue Ox announcer Sean Bigham throughout this season, but its withdrawal leaves WGUY as the only station airing Blue Ox games.

“This wasn’t a surprise. Technical concerns kept coming back after we thought we’d ironed them out,” said Blue Ox president and general manager Dean Gyorgy.

Gyorgy emphasized the withdrawal does not mean WMDI has lost interest in the independent Northeast Baseball League team, as WMDI officials expressed interest in broadcasting Blue Ox baseball in 1997.

The loss of WMDI means parts of coastal Maine join Aroostook County as the only two areas in the Blue Ox “target area” without access to games on the radio.

“I don’t think it hurts a great deal because WGUY does get its signal into Ellsworth and central Maine. That was our first concern,” Gyorgy explained.

There is still a chance other stations in either area might step up and join the network.

“We’re certainly open to that. It’s not at the top of our priority list right now, but we’d love to have another station sign on,” he said.

Attempts to reach St. James by phone were unsuccessful.

It became official Tuesday at midnight. Searsport’s WBYA (101.7 FM), an adult contemporary radio station that also aired many local high school and college sporting events, is now a classical music station with no sports – local or otherwise.

“Evidently, we weren’t bringing in money quick enough,” said former sports director Bob Warren, one of five WBYA employees fired as part of a downsizing of the staff.

“Everyone here is history. They’ll keep one person here to maintain the downtown address,” Warren explained. “They’re [station owners] looking at tapping into the Bangor market.”

The changes come as WBYA begins simulcasting programming from WAVX (106.9 FM) in Rockland. The new partnership between the stations, dubbed “The Classical Wave,” will serve a listening area from Bangor to Brunswick.

“I guess when you really look at it, it was strictly a financial decision,” said WBYA co-owner Jim Pomfret of Baltimore. “After 20 months on the air, it wasn’t proving to be financially viable. We just couldn’t logically continue on.”

WBYA, which had 30 broadcasts of local high school softball and baseball on its schedule, did its 14th and final game Monday. Listener reaction to the program change has not been positive.

“The reaction has been negative. We had four or five calls Monday and another 20 to 30 Tuesday. Nobody likes it,” said Warren, who says he’s looking around for another job:

“Some people are talking about starting up another station in this area. The community wants to try and get a local station with local programming back on the air.”

Viewers watching ESPN on Cablevision a week or two ago may have been frustrated by impromptu commercials in the middle of live game broadcasts and shows.

Technical difficulties are to blame, according to Cablevision sales manager Deb Chapman.

“We determined the probable source of the problem as a glitch with the commercial cue switching tones between ESPN and Cablevision’s ad insertion equipment,” Chapman explained.

The result was ads coming on at the worst possible time: like in the middle of a scoring play in an NHL playoff game.

Chapman says they believe the problem has been solved as Cablevision has received no further complaints, but…

“We’d like subscribers to call us if they experience any further problems. Otherwise, we might not find out about it,” said Chapman.