The numbers are in and officials at Bangor all-sports radio station WZON (620 AM) are smiling broadly.
Broadcasting all 23 games from the Senior League World Series in Bangor last week either on radio, the Internet (zoneradio.com), or both, was anything but easy, but the effort seems to have paid off.
“It took a quieter week in August and made things real busy, but it was well worth it,” said station program director and announcer Dale Duff. “We got e-mail from all over, Hawaii, Iowa, Virginia … Even Guam. We had one from a grandparent of an Iowa player living in Arizona who was listening.”
Duff was reviewing Internet “ratings” provided by WarpRadio of Colorado, which provides the radio streaming for WZON broadcasts on the Internet.
“In terms of the total numbers, what we go by are three categories: total streams [continuous listening time per listener, per log-in], total unique listeners (each listener who logs in, regardless of how many times they click onto audio streams], and total time spent streaming [by all listeners].”
The total number of streams was 8,397 and the majority of those lasted more than 10 minutes. Duff said a total of 5,249 unique listeners logged onto WZON’s broadcast via Internet during the week of the World Series for a total online time of 6,346 hours.
“I think it’s probably one more feather in the cap of having audio streaming on the Internet for us,” Duff said. “This would be right up there in terms of our big UMaine sports events.”
This was the first time the Sports Zone broadcast all 23 games, which were all available on the Internet. WZON also aired all four Orono-Veazie games plus the Series championship game on radio.
Bangor radio station WABI (910 AM) also had a successful effort in its second year of airing Senior League World Series games. WABI did all four Orono-Veazie games, the semifinals, and the championship.
“It was excellent. We also did the Southwest champions’ games on KWHI (1280 AM) in Brenham [Texas],” said WABI program director George Hale, whose crew called the action live for the broadcast heard in Brenham. “They said the whole town was listening to the games.”
WABI’s Brenham broadcasts were no heard locally.
Raising funds for Jimmy
Boston sports radio station WEEI (850 AM) is broadcasting its Jimmy Fund Radiothon today from 6 a.m. through midnight. For the first time in radiothon history, New England Sports Network is joining in to simulcast it from 8 a.m. through 7 p.m.
NESN’s coverage will have a bit of a Maine flavor the first seven hours. The host of the simulcast’s first two hours is former Portland Pirates radio voice Tom Caron. The host from 10 a.m. through 3 p.m. is Eric Frede, a former sports director at Bangor television station WVII (Ch. 7).
Other hosts include Dale Arnold from 3 to 6:30 p.m., Bob Rodgers (6:30-7:30 p.m.), and Sam Horn (same).
Bangor radio station WZON will provide live “listen-ins” (updates) on the radiothon, but will not join it live for extended periods as it aired its own Jimmy Fund Radiothon Aug. 4
“We raised over $6,000 this year. That’s up a little over what we raised last year,” said Duff.
WZON’s eighth annual radiothon lasted from 6 a.m. until noon.
The Jimmy Fund is the official charity of the Boston Red Sox and the fund-raising arm of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which is trying to cure cancer in children and adults.
Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or aneff@bangordailynews.net
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