For the sixth time since the station’s first foray into professional preseason pigskin programming back in 1995, Bangor’s WVII (Channel 7) will air New England Patriots exhibition games.

Only this time, the playbook has changed. The games will be aired live.

The Bangor television station will broadcast the Pats’ first game (at Cincinnati) on sister station and Fox Network affiliate WFVX (Ch. 22) Friday, Aug. 12. Station officials say it’s the first live preseason Pats broadcast aired in the Bangor market in more than a decade, and maybe ever.

In the past, NFL TV broadcast exclusivity rules prevented stations outside a 75-mile radius of the local franchise’s stadium (Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass.) from airing preseason games live. Those rules no longer apply.

“All they said was there has been a change in the NFL rules regarding that policy. I don’t know exactly what was done, but I’m glad they did it,” said Keryn Smith, WVII general sales manager.

There was a last-minute snag involving rights fees WVII will be paying Boston flagship station WCVB, but that was quickly ironed out Friday.

“I think it was just a case of one thing not fitting all markets. I talked to his boss and we cleared things up,” Smith said.

Smith said the stations have already sold about a third to a half of the available commercial spots for the games.

“It makes all the difference in the world for us in terms of presenting it to advertisers,” Smith said. “Plus a lot of people don’t want to stay up that late for any reason.”

All four Patriots preseason games, as well as the regular season opener against Oakland on Thursday night, Sept. 8 (ABC) will be aired by either WVII or WFVX.

“This creates a very good situation for us because between the two stations, we’ll have the Patriots on five weeks in a row,” said Smith.

The schedule is as follows: Friday, Aug. 12, at Cincinnati, 7:30 p.m. on WFVX (Ch. 22); Thursday, Aug. 18, vs. New Orleans, 8 p.m., WFVX; 8 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 26, at Green Bay, 8 p.m., WFVX (Ch. 22); Thursday, Sept. 1, vs. New York Giants, 8 p.m., WVII (Ch. 7); and Thursday, Sept. 8, vs. Oakland, 9 p.m. on WVII.

The exclusivity rules have been a sore point for many New England stations, given the Patriots’ somewhat unique status as one of the few NFL teams to have a truly regional appeal that cuts beyond home state borders. This policy has been weakened in recent years to the point that the NFL allows franchises leeway in dealing with out-of-state stations in regional markets. Now the main issue is money… In particular, rights fees paid to the team’s flagship station.

The policy’s intent was to guard against local market stations cutting into national network game telecast ratings.

WVII first aired Patriots preseason games in 1995, went through a five-year lull, and then picked them up again in 2001. The station has aired at least one Patriots preseason game each year since.

A-10 is A1 on television

The Atlantic 10 Football Conference will have 23 games aired on regional and local television networks and stations this fall.

When each of the last two Division I-AA national champions have come out of your conference, it certainly doesn’t hurt your marketability.

At least four of those broadcasts will involve Maine as the Black Bears will appear on Bangor station WABI (Ch. 5) at least three times (the schedule is still not finalized) and another (Delaware at Maine) will air on CN8, a regional network extending from Maine to Maryland with an audience of approximately 6.25 million homes.

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