WLBZ-TV has been busy on the collegiate basketball scene, securing the television rights to the University of Maine’s America East Women’s Basketball Tournament games through Maine Broadcasting System, which consists of WLBZ and Portland “sister” station WCSH (Ch. 6).

This is the third straight year Maine Broadcasting has televised the Black Bears’ tourney games.

The tournament dates are Feb. 27, March 2, 5, and 8. Maine will receive a bye in the first round and will play a home quarterfinal game March 2.

In the unlikely event Maine is not the top seed, WLBZ-WCSH will still air any of the Black Bears’ road games.

America East commissioner Stu Haskell said the agreement involves both cash and air time (promotional spots for the conference) in return for the rights to the games.

Haskell also said other local stations expressed interest, but Maine Broadcasting was the only one to submit a proposal in writing.

“All stations were invited to take a look at it, and we were contacted by some stations, but they opted not to carry it further for whatever reasons,” Haskell explained.

WLBZ is also trying a new approach to NBA basketball coverage this season.

In past years, WLBZ has aired only the games that started at 12:30 p.m. or later and have no logical chance to run into the 6 p.m. newscast. Another option used was not carrying the first half of late NBA games on Saturday or Sunday and joining the game late in the second half after the local newscast at 6:30 p.m.

This year, WLBZ will air all weekend NBA action not occurring between noon and 12:30 p.m. or 6-6:30 p.m.

For example, if NBC schedules an NBA Sunday tripleheader next week and the first game is slated to start at 12:30 p.m., WLBZ will join coverage at 12:30 p.m. and continue on until 6 p.m.

NBA coverage will be broken at 6 p.m. for WLBZ’s evening newscast and resume at 6:30 p.m.

“This is the first time we’ve tried it this way,” said Dingey. “People have been telling us they’d rather see the start and end of the games, or as much as possible, rather than miss the first half, or the whole game entirely.”

So Dingey and WLBZ are going to try this new plan and see how it works out.

So what about the games that start around 4 p.m. and don’t end until, say 6:10 p.m.?

“We’re not going to pull a Heidi and have people miss the last five minutes of a close game,” said Dingey, referring to the broadcast of a 1968 NFL game between the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders in which NBC cut away from the game late to show the movie Heidi.

The Raiders staged a comeback and won the game after the network cut away.

“For those few games that may not end right at six, we won’t start the newscast until the conclusion of the game,” Dingey explained.

So in the previous example, WLBZ’s newscast would start at 6:10 p.m., right after the game ends. But for a game starting at 5 p.m. or later, the plan calls for WLBZ to leave the game for the newscast and then come back to it a half hour later.