New deal returns WZON’s feed to the Internet

The rash of recent dot-com failures has had its effects on the sports front in the Bangor area.

The financial woes of BroadcastAmerica.com impacted the broadcast plans of all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM), but fortunately for WZON, the timing was such that its ability to cover University of Maine and other sports was largely unaffected.

Shortly after BroadcastAmerica.com, which ran into financial trouble in late 2000, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, WZON found it no longer could air separate games or simulcasts on its new WZON-I Internet site, which was handled by BroadcastAmerica.com.

“I think we lost our stream feed from BroadcastAmerica.com sometime around Dec. 20th or 21st,” said WZON program director Dale Duff. “We found out about it pretty much the same way everyone else did once the plug got pulled.”

Fortunately for WZON, the loss of service coincided with the holiday season and the end of the fall semester at the University of Maine, so the normally crowded UMaine sports schedule (hockey, men’s and women’s basketball) wasn’t too crowded.

Other games which conflicted with WZON broadcasts were streamed (broadcast on the Internet) on WZON-I through links to other college’s services.

“We were lucky because the only game we would have missed [Maine women at Northeastern Jan. 7], we ended up broadcasting on WZON,” Duff explained.

The situation is close to being fully recovered now as WZON has signed on with WarpRadio.com, a company which has been in business for two years, to be its new internet streaming service provider. WarpRadio was the winner among several other interested parties, including Yahoo, WebRadio, and StreamAudio.

“The whole agreement we were able to work out with them in terms of how we get it to them, the equipment we use, how we get our signal to them… just the whole package was the best deal for us, technically, financially and all-around,” Duff said. “They seem to be a very strong company.”

BroadcastAmerica’s financial woes have benefited similar companies such as WarpRadio, which has increased its business from 400 stations to more than 450.

Duff was reluctant to discus specific contract details.

“It’s a length of contract both sides can live with and it allows for changing technology and other possible variables,” Duff explained.

Variables such as the bankruptcy that forced WZON to react in this case, for instance.

WZON partially restored its Internet broadcast capability last Friday night as it resumed simulcasting WZON’s programming on WZON-I with the Maine-Boston University hockey game.

“We put the finishing touches on it last Thursday and then tested it that night,” Duff said. “We’re just waiting for a couple pieces of equipment and I think there’s a possibility we’ll be streaming [alternate games or programming] within a week, if not sooner.”

Duff said that although it’s not imminent, it’s possible for WZON to do its own Internet streaming in the future.

In the meantime, WZON-WKIT, two of the few Maine stations which are streaming at all, have received grateful letters and e-mails from listeners since they began streaming a year and a half ago.