WABI, WBGR teaming up for SEC football broadcasts

Major college football fans rejoice. CBS’ Southeastern Conference football coverage is back after a four-year absence from the Maine local and cable television market.

Thanks to an agreement between Bangor UHF station WBGR (Channel 33, Adelphia Cable channel 9), CBS, and CBS Bangor affiliate WABI (Channel 5), hardcore SEC pigskin aficionados can now watch teams such as Tennessee, Florida, Alabama and Georgia slug it out every Saturday afternoon from the comfort of their own living rooms.

“This is a fairly significant product to pick up. Certainly there’s a demand for it and we’ve built our reputation on filling the niches that aren’t being addressed by other stations in the market,” said WBGR president James McLeod. “It’s a natural fit for us and the majority of those niches have to do with sports.”

As part of its one-year deal with CBS, WBGR will broadcast one game a week for 10 weeks starting Saturday with a 3 p.m. game between Arkansas and Alabama. McLeod said there could be one conflict early in the schedule with an SEC and Boston Red Sox game, but the schedule may change.

“We’re more than happy they were able to take those games,” said WABI program director Steve Hiltz. “They’ve kind of taken some pressure off us because we’ve had a few people calling us over the years to get those games on.”

Both Hiltz and McLeod said the deal was a further extension of the cooperative relationship between the two stations and CBS that began two years ago when WBGR aired NCAA Tournament basketball games WABI could not air due to conflicts with high school tournament game broadcasts.

“I wasn’t aware of the fact that these games weren’t being aired in this market until a friend of mine who’s from the southeast mentioned they weren’t on,” McLeod said.

WABI carried the games in 1996, the first year of CBS’ current deal with the SEC, but has opted not to air them since due to ratings and a conflict with the 6 p.m. newscast.

“The ratings weren’t working out very well for us and the overruns were hurting us, making a lot of viewers complain about missing their 7 o’clock shows,” Hiltz explained. “We had to make a decision. We knew people wanted to see local news and the ratings we got for the games wasn’t even close to what we’d get for the news.”

WABI wasn’t the only to make that decision. In fact, both Portland CBS affiliate WGME (Ch. 13) and Presque Isle’s WAGM (Ch. 8) chose not to take the games as early as 1996.

The move gives WBGR a college football doubleheader every Saturday as it also carries the Big East Conference game of the week at noon.

“It fits in well, but we have some trepidation about what happens if the first game runs long and cuts into the 3 or 3:30 start time,” McLeod said. “I think the plan would be to finish out that game and then join coverage of the CBS game right after.”

The late afternoon start shouldn’t adversely impact WBGR’s Pax Network programming either, according to McLeod.

“We don’t join PAX regular programming until 4 o’clock, so we’ll miss a couple hours but not prime time,” he explained.

NESN on the fast track

New England Sports Network’s special on Northeast car racing – Fast Track: New England Auto Racing – appears to be a hit with racing enthusiasts.

The one-hour special, which aired Sunday, Sept. 2, took behind-the-scenes looks at venues, drivers (Ricky Craven) and pit crews from New Hampshire International Speedway to various small-scale tracks in Vermont and Maine. The show may become a regular staple on NESN’s schedule.

USA Network aces ratings

Overall ratings for USA Network’s prime time coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament went up 36 percent this year. That translates into a net gain of 448,000 households from 1,142,000 in 2000 to 1,590,000 this year. USA’s day-night coverage is up 46 percent, from 848,000 households to 1,239,000 this year.

Andrew Neff’s On the Air column is published each Tuesday. He can be reached at 990-8205, toll-free at 1-800-310-8600 or via e-mail at aneff@bangordailynews.net.