Patriots travel to I-95 this season Ellsworth’s WWMJ reaches deal to broadcast New England football

The New England Patriots Rock Radio Network will roll along on I-95 this season.

After kicking around locally on Clear Channel Communications station WNSX (97.7 FM) of Winter Harbor the last three seasons, the Patriots are hooking up with a new partner now that Cumulus Broadcasting station WWMJ (95.7 FM) of Ellsworth has signed up to be the local affiliate through the 2008-09 season.

“Ever since we changed WWMJ’s format from oldies to classic hits, we’ve been waiting for the competition to drop it and a chance to pick it up,” said Cumulus Media chief operator and WWMJ program director Fred Miller. “This fits in well with the demographic we cater to. It goes hand in hand for us along with our programming and ‘Imus in the Morning.'”

Clear Channel sold WNSX to Stony Creek Broadcasting, owned by Mark Osborne and Natalie Knox, last October and Clear Channel elected to let its Patriots affiliation lapse instead of switching it over to Searsport’s WFZX (101.7 FM), another classic rock station.

“We approached the Patriots back along and let them know we were very interested in carrying their games if the rights were available, and out of the blue we got a call,” Miller said. “There wasn’t any bidding involved. Clear Channel dropped it, but I don’t know why.”

Attempts to reach Clear Channel Maine director of operations Jeffrey Pierce on Thursday were unsuccessful.

WWMJ will air all Patriots preseason and regular season games along with any postseason games available to regional networks. The first game is at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 11, when the Patriots travel to Atlanta to open the preseason. The first regular season game is in Foxborough, Mass., Sunday, Sept. 10, against Buffalo.

The three-year contract requires “I-95” to carry all pregame, game and postgame coverage by Patriots flagship station WBCN (104.1 FM) of Boston. That amounts to more than nine hours of programming each game day.

“It was a concern initially, but after reviewing past tapes of shows and programs, we think it will be just fine,” Miller said. “Whether it’s Sunday afternoon or Monday night, the only thing we’d be broadcasting is music. We’re actually hoping to have a bigger draw with the Patriots than we would with regular programming.”

Miller said the move should give his station an obvious identity, increase ad revenue, and reverse his station’s listener demographic.

“In this day and age of satellite radio, local stations have to have a draw to bring people to them and make themselves special. We have that with Imus and the Patriots,” Miller said. “We’re making a lot of ad sales. We even have advertisers literally lining up.

“WWMJ is more or less geared at people in their 40s with the demographic being 60 percent male and 40 percent female. It was more like 65 percent female for the oldies format.”

Signal strength and coverage area shouldn’t be a problem either for the 5,000-watt station.

“You can get us from Millinocket to Camden and Machias to Augusta,” Miller added.

Saint Joe’s memorializes Fixaris

Saint Joseph’s College in Standish will perpetuate the memory of Frank Fixaris, a popular sportscaster who worked and lived in Southern Maine for 50 years, by establishing the Frank Fixaris Memorial Endowment on Tuesday.

Fixaris, who died at the age of 71 in January after a fire broke out in his house, was the sports director at Portland TV station WGME (Channel 13) from 1967 to 1992 and was working as a morning show host on Portland radio station WJAB (1440 AM) most recently.

A press conference to announce the kickoff to an endowment effort to fund two $5,000 annual scholarships for a deserving junior and senior in the fields of journalism and broadcasting will be held Tuesday. Also, Wednesday’s live, call-in radio show on WJAB will be dedicated to Fixaris.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8500 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net.