Red Sox, WZON extend relationship for five years

There may be some change brewing for the Boston Red Sox radio network next season, but one thing won’t change for at least another five years.

Officials at Bangor all-sports station WZON (620 AM) and Red Sox radio flagship station WEEI (850 AM) have agreed on a five-year contract extension that will keep The Sports Zone’s Sox on through 2011.

The new deal, made official this week, means WZON will be a Sox affiliate for almost two straight decades.

“Yeah, 18 seasons,” said WZON program director and broadcaster Dale Duff. “We said the same thing. I was asking how many years it had been and that was just amazing to me.”

The Sox are a tight fit with WZON. Besides being one of the station’s three biggest programming staples, it also serves as a conduit for various fundraisers and annual events like the Jimmy Fund Radiothon, opening-day and All-Star break cookouts, bus trips to Red Sox and Portland Sea Dogs games, memorabilia giveaways, and its annual “hot stove” Q and A public session with Sox radio announcers Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano.

Trupiano’s future with the Sox has been the subject of much speculation this offseason as press reports persist that he may be replaced. The latest report, this one by the Boston Herald, had ex-Fox network announcer and former Red Sox utility infielder Steve “Psycho” Lyons replacing Trupiano.

“We don’t know yet. Certainly Joe is coming back and I spoke with Jerry just a couple days ago,” said Duff. “He’s still waiting to hear.”

Trupiano returned a phone call about his current situation, but elected not to comment, citing advice of counsel. He did say he hopes, like many of his listeners do, he is back in the broadcast booth for a 15th season of Red Sox baseball.

WZON is one of a select number of stations offered a five-year contract among the 60 Sox radio affiliates.

“With such a larger number, they don’t want to do 60 all at the same time, so they’re doing some areas with one-year contracts and others with two- or three-year contracts,” Duff explained. “With us, he wanted to do five and we did, too.”

It fills a big spot in WZON’s programming lineup.

“University of Maine sports and the high school stuff are local, but the Red Sox are local and national,” Duff said. “And they’re all year-round staples for us. The Red Sox dominate a lot of our talk when it comes to our morning and afternoon shows.”

CSTV offers freebie

National satellite and cable network College Sports TV is offering some cable viewers in central and southern Maine a chance to see the network free this weekend.

Time Warner Portland cable customers will get CSTV as part of their expanded basic cable package Friday through Sunday as the network debuts its new “Ballfields to Battlefields” special on college athletes enlisting in the U.S. armed forces. It will also air the football game between Notre Dame and Air Force on Saturday at 4 p.m.

CSTV has a couple of University of Maine hockey games on its winter schedule: Feb. 10 at Orono against Vermont and Feb. 16 at Chestnut Hill, Mass., against Boston College.

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