The 23rd season of Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation’s television coverage of the Eastern and Western Maine basketball tournaments will provide even more action for the state’s hoop fans.

In addition to its usual 36 hours of tournament game coverage, Maine PBS (Public Broadcasting System) will also broadcast the Class B state championship games, something Maine’s public TV stations haven’t done in 16 years.

“In the past we have not carried the state finals on the Friday night preceding the start of the A tournament. This year we’re partnering with WABI [Channel 5, Bangor],” said Maine PBS producer Ed Fowler, who has been producing the tournament since MPBN began broadcasting the games in 1979. “WABI will feed the Bangor market with their local transmitter and we’ll feed the game to the rest of the state.”

WABI, which has exclusive TV rights to the Class B state games on March 1, will supply Maine PBS with a “clean feed,” which is a signal which excludes any graphics or audio. So, Bangor-area viewers will see the games WABI with WABI’s announcers and graphics while the rest of the state will see the same game action, but with Maine PBS’ graphics and their own announcers.

That means the Class B state games will be seen on PBS stations in Augusta-Portland (Channel 10), Presque Isle (10), Calais (13) and Biddeford (26).

Not since 1987, when both WABI and Maine PBS elected to do the state games – separately – have public television viewers been able to see the Friday night state finals.

“They were set up on one side and we were on the other,” said Fowler. “It worked out okay, but we haven’t done it since.”

Depending on how this arrangement works out, Fowler is hopeful that this could lead to Maine PBS also airing WABI’s broadcasts of Eastern Maine Class A tournament semifinals, finals, and state games – games Maine Public TV have never aired.

This is the final year of Maine PBS’ three-year deal with the Maine Principals’ Association for TV rights to the Eastern and Western Maine Classes B, C, and D tournament games.

Fowler says he still hears viewers asking for quarterfinal coverage as well, but the added expense makes it almost impossible for Maine PBS to take on the added games.

“We’ve talked about it in the past, but we don’t really seriously consider it because it would take up a lot of time and preempt a lot of the programs we’d normally be carrying,” Fowler said. “And we’d increase our cost considerably because of the increased expense involved for the personnel we’d need. Also, since we pay rights fees to the MPA, that would make for quite a difference in price.”

Maine PBS will begin its Eastern-Western tournament coverage Wednesday, Feb. 20. Fowler and his crew won’t begin setting up equipment until Thursday.

“We’ll start running cables into the building then, but we won’t actually set up cameras or anything until next Tuesday,” Fowler said of the time-intensive operation. “It’s a good 12 hours to get all the equipment set up, and that’s just getting stuff in and turned on. It’s another four to five hours or so to tweak everything and make sure everything’s working.”

Fowler said the scope of the tournament coverage requires Maine PBS to hire extra people because there simply aren’t enough trained employees already on staff to handle everything.

“We’re basically doing two full remotes in two different locations and this all involves broadcasting a lot of games in a relatively short period of time, so it’s not easy,” he explained.

Another change for Maine PBS includes the hiring of a floor announcer for interviews and features between games or during halftimes. University of Maine graduate Jim Baines will handle those duties as regular announcers Joe Gould, Ernie Clark, Keith MacKeen, and Lisa Richards return to call the game action.

Bouchard returns to tourney

Former University of Maine and Hall-Dale High School standout Rachel Bouchard will be back in the tournament this year. She has been hired to call the action during Maine PBS’ coverage of Western Maine B-C-D tournament semifinals and finals girls games. Bouchard ranks second all-time at Maine in career scoring and rebounding.

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