WZON repeats as AP’s premier station in Maine

Winning the Associated Press Station of the Year award is prestigious enough, but when you’re the first radio station north of Augusta to win it in eight years and you repeat the feat the very next year … Well, now you’re talking about something special.

Employees of Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM) found out The Sports Zone had repeated as station of the year at last weekend’s Maine AP Broadcasters Association banquet and awards ceremony in South Portland.

The Sports Zone came away with 12 awards, including first-place finishes for best sportscast (Sports Zone Fast Break), sports feature (on Maine quarterback Jake Eaton), and play-by-play (for high school basketball tournament coverage).

WZON program director Dale Duff chalked up WZON’s awards bonanza to the station’s overall balance.

“I think what really helped us on this was a lot of variety in terms of sports and news,” said Duff. “I’ve been doing this stuff for more than 20 years and it’s usually Maine Public Radio or [Portland’s] WGAN that wins.”

Duff credited WZON news director Al Jackson and reporter Nick Rogers for beefing up the station’s news coverage capability.

“I guess because I’m an old news junkie and came from the news side before I started doing sports … I try to make that one of the staples of our station,” said Duff, a former reporter and sports director at Bangor TV station WLBZ. “We’re based in sports, but sports fans want to know what else is going on too.”

WZON also won second place for newscast, enterprise reporting (West Nile virus story), medical reporting (E-Coli story), spot news (murder trial verdict), sports feature (Maine hockey coach Tim Whitehead), and play-by-play (Maine hockey Frozen Four coverage).

“You know, it helps, too, that there are a lot more categories to enter on the news side. It should be easier for a news station to win, based on all those extra categories,” Duff pointed out.

Third-place honors went to WZON for election coverage and a Dan Hannigan musical promotional spoof titled Wildcat Strut for an upcoming Maine-New Hampshire hockey series.

The last Bangor-area station to win the AP Station of the Year award was Brewer’s WQCB (106.5 FM) in 1993. Prior to that, Augusta sister stations WFAU-WKCG (1280 AM, 101.3 FM) won it in 1991. In 1996, WGAN (560 AM) won the award before a four-year run by Maine Public Radio was snapped by WZON last year.

NESN has Emmy hat trick

New England Sports Network won three trophies at the 26th annual National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences New England Emmy Awards gala last Sunday in Boston.

NESN won an Emmy for most outstanding sports series with “Diamonds in the Far East – Japanese Baseball” and won two more for most outstanding sports special with “A Season Inside – Boston College Hockey” and “The Boston Red Sox – 100 Years of Baseball History, ” which was produced for NESN by Cramer Productions.

This marks the ninth consecutive year that NESN has won at least one Emmy Award. The regional cable network has won 14 awards the last six years.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net