Low water alters coverage of race WZON radio still doing Kenduskeag

Unusually low water conditions for Saturday’s Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race may have knocked Bangor television station WABI’s broadcast coverage overboard, but Bangor all-sports radio station WZON’s plans are still afloat.

“We were out Tuesday to test our equipment and it was amazing how shallow it was,” said WZON announcer Clem LaBree. “There are lots of rocks barely covered by water, but the conditions really don’t change our coverage much.”

This will be WZON’s 10th Kenduskeag broadcast. The Sports Zone’s live coverage begins from the starting line near the Kenduskeag Grange Hall at 8:30 a.m. and ends around 11 a.m. About a dozen people will be involved in covering or broadcasting the race.

“The setup will be the same, but the time we spend at various points may vary,” said LaBree. “The only thing is with over 500 boats last year, the field may be a lot smaller if people are scared away by the low water. That could change our coverage as well because the race may not last as long.”

Low water caused officials at WABI (Channel 5) to cancel their live broadcast plans for the first time in 10 years.

The problem was twofold as WABI wasn’t sure whether race organizers would have to require entrants to do a mandatory portage at Six Mile Falls.

“When we spoke to them Tuesday, they indicated they felt the race was a go, but didn’t know what additional, if any, portages they’d have, and it makes for poor TV if all people are doing is carrying canoes instead of paddling them,” said Michael Young, WABI’s vice president and general manager. “There’s no compelling video there if they’re portaging.”

There were also technical limitations to consider.

“It’s virtually impossible to get a signal out of there with the surrounding terrain if you don’t have a direct, line-of-sight satellite path,” Young added. “And there is no other site along the river we can get a signal out where there’s equally compelling video.”

Frozen Four freezeout

The University of Maine hockey team’s third Frozen Four appearance in the last five seasons didn’t generate the usual frenzy of media coverage this year, due to geographic and technological limitations.

Local television stations in particular were affected by logistical problems and had to revise their traditional approach to coverage.

“We looked into sending [sports director Tim Throckmorton] only to discover that there were limited logistical and technical resources available necessary to support reports of substance, specifically satellite time,” said WABI’s Young. “A lot of ABC affiliates had first dibs with the infrastructure in place, and ESPN/ESPN2 doing the games made it easier for them to get satellite air time.”

Bangor NBC affiliate WLBZ (Ch. 2) found similar problems.

“With the game at 8 p.m., there was no way for us to get a live shot back logistically at 11 p.m.,” said WLBZ president and general manager Judy Horan. “We just thought it wasn’t enough of a coverage payoff to do that. It just didn’t seem like the best use of our sports [budget] dollars.”

Instead of sending someone out to provide coverage, all three Bangor network affiliates got some help from fellow affiliates in Wisconsin.

“My company [Rockfleet Wisconsin’s WJFW in Wassau-Rhinelander] owns an NBC station there and their sports guy [Matt Thompson] went down and did stuff for us,” said Mike Palmer, general manager at Bangor’s WVII (Ch. 7). “I know we’ve sent people in the past, but we couldn’t see sending someone this time around. Since we had someone out there with our connections, we figured why not use him?”

WLBZ got video footage and interviews for its pregame coverage from the NBC affiliate in Madison, but ran into some problems on game night.

“Because the Maine game’s postgame coverage came really late from the NCAA, we didn’t use that until Friday,” Horan explained. “We did have game highlights from ESPN2 we used that night, but our postgame stuff ran Friday.”

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