TV out for UM football Cost prevents airing of playoff game

Less than 24 hours after the University of Maine football team got the news from the NCAA Division I-AA selection committee that they were officially in the playoffs, local television stations scrambled to put together plans to broadcast the first round game.

Just a few hours later, early Monday afternoon, hopes were dashed and it was all but a certainty that the Black Bears’ Saturday night playoff game at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, La., would not be televised.

“Unless something changes in the next day or so, we just can’t afford to get it done,” said Steve Hiltz, program director for Bangor TV station WABI (Channel 5). “There’s nothing I could come up with that would work so we didn’t put in a bid [to the NCAA for TV rights].

“We simply can’t afford to do it if there isn’t someone doing it we can get a signal from. It’s too expensive to rent material, hire people, pay satellite time, and commit manpower to get this done, especially when we only have four or five days to put it all together and sell ad time.”

The word was pretty much the same at Bangor’s other stations.

“It doesn’t look like it’s gonna be a possibility,” said WLBZ-TV (Channel 2) general manager Judy Horan. “It’s prohibitively expensive [to produce and broadcast] and we’ve already got a huge obligation on our equipment all over the state Saturday. With our Coats for Kids program starting up, there’s no way we could have fielded a crew for that [Maine game].”

Mitch Lambert, general manager at Bangor station WVII (Ch. 7), was unavailable for comment Monday.

Both Hiltz and Horan explained that the only cost-effective way for them to do the game would have been to pay a local station in Louisiana broadcasting the game to allow them to take the game signal and air it in the Maine market. Although both Hiltz and Horan were quite interested in doing just that, it never became an option since no Louisiana station plans to broadcast the game.

Lake Charles and Fox affiliate station KVHP has been McNeese State’s “flagship” station the last few years, but most of its broadcasts have been away games. Ironically, KVHP took a feed from WABI two years ago when Maine hosted McNeese State in a regular season game.

Apparently, there is a feeling by McNeese State officials that a live game telecast would decrease fan attendance at the game.

“Somebody at UMaine said he was, quite frankly, taken aback by the answer they gave him when he asked about the possibility of somebody showing the game,” said Hiltz. “It was like ‘No, it’s not going to be on TV. End of discussion.’ Basically even if someone was interested, they weren’t interested.”

That means that the only live coverage of the 8 p.m. game will be provided by Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM).

NESN gets vertical

New England Sports Network is premiering a one-hour special called “Vertical Run – Skiing in New England” Sunday at 7 p.m.

The show will be of particular interest to Mainers as it features a close look at Carrabassett Valley Academy’s skiing program as well as U.S. Ski Team member Kirsten Clark of Raymond. American Ski Company’s former chief executive officer Les Otten is also interviewed in the special.

Channel switched on big game

Saturday afternoon’s college football game between No. 2 Florida and No. 4 Tennessee, scheduled for 4:30 p.m., will not be on Bangor CBS affiliate WABI.

WABI, which does not air CBS football games starting later than 2:30 p.m. so as not to overrun its 6 p.m. newscast, will hand the game off to Bangor PAX Network affiliate WBGR (Channel 33). WBGR has aired 10 CBS Southeastern Conference games that WABI has passed on this fall.

Officials at WBGR were unavailable Monday to confirm whether the game will be on, but it is likely the Volunteers-Gators clash, which will likely decide one of the participants in the national championship game, will be on WBGR’s airwaves.

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