Just like Bangor television station WABI (Channel 5), Bangor all-sports radio station WZON has extended its contract with the University of Maine to be the flagship station for regular season Black Bear game broadcasts.

Only The Sports Zone (620 AM) has gone WABI one better, extending its deal for two seasons, through the 2001-2002 academic year. The first year of that extension recently concluded.

“We’re a little bit more free with our schedule, long-term, than most TV stations and we just thought it would be better to renew the contract for two more seasons,” said Dale Duff, WZON’s program director. “We could have kicked in each extra year individually, but since both parties were mutually agreeable, we did both.”

The Sports Zone will air UMaine hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, football, baseball and softball games in its two-year extension.

WZON has been broadcasting UMaine sporting events live since it went on the air in the fall of 1993. WZON’s current agreement, which results in an average of 125-130 Black Bear games on the air each year, started in 1997. The Sports Zone has been airing UMaine hockey, football, and basketball games since 1995.

WABI, which also had a two-year extension option, has extended its three-year deal and extra year and may revisit another one-year extension later this year.

As Maine goes…

The final piece is now in place for New England Sports Network in its quest to make the total conversion from a premium cable channel to a standard channel.

AT&T Broadband and NESN have reached an agreement to carry NESN as part of AT&T’s standard cable service, meaning Boston Red Sox and Bruins games will now be available regularly to 1.5 million AT&T cable customers, most of which reside in the Massachusetts market.

The switch means subscribers will no longer have to pay $10 for NESN on top of their regular cable bill. Instead, all subscribers, whether they previously had NESN or not, will see their monthly cable bills rise by $1.40. Maine cable companies like Adelphia made the same switch four years ago.

The envelopes, please

Bangor’s WZON and NESN have recently won some broadcasting hardware in the forms of Associated Press and New England Emmy awards, respectively.

WZON took first-place prizes in play-by-play, sportscast, sports feature, and continuing sports coverage contest categories. Play-by-play was for live high school sports (basketball, football, baseball) game broadcasts, sportscast was for Dan Hannigan’s Hangtime show, sports feature was for WZON’s special on Shawn Walsh’s battle with cancer, and continuing coverage for broadcasts during the University of Maine hockey team’s drive to the Frozen Four during the 1999-2000 season.

WZON also took second and third in play-by-play along with a second in sports feature.

NESN won a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences New England Emmy award in the sports play-by-play category at the 24th annual ceremony at Boston.

NESN won the award for coverage of the Boston Red Sox. It is the fifth time in the last seven years NESN has been so honored.