Super Bowl Update

The Indiana Broadcasters Association handed out its annual Spectrum Awards on Saturday night in Indianapolis, and radio and TV stations covering Southwestern Indiana accounted for a sizable number of awards.

Terre Haute's WTWO-NBC 2 and WTHI Hi-99 FM won their respective TV and radio Station of the Year awards, as did Vincennes University's WVUB-91.1 FM.

NBC 2 also won first place in the Breaking News Story and Weathercast categories, second place in the Feature/Use of Medium, Sportscast and Newscast categories, and third place in the Commercial category.

WTHI-TV 10 brought home firsts in the Breaking Local News Story, Feature/Use of Medium and Cross Platform Use of Television categories.  The station also took second place in the Station of the Year, General News Story and Weathercast categories, with thirds in the Newscast and Community Involvement categories and the Service to Indiana category for "Raise Your Sleeve."

On the radio, several area stations did quite well:

The Chicago Bears and CBS Radio Chicago announced Wednesday morning that they have reached a new multi-year deal that will keep the NFL team on WBBM Newsradio 780 AM - 105.9 FM and its sister stations in the Windy City.

WBBM has been the radio home of the Bears since 2000. In Southwestern Indiana, the Bears' games can also be heard on WFML-96.7 FM in Vincennes, which is the only Bears radio affiliate located in the Tri-State.

“We are happy to continue our outstanding partnership with WBBM ... and excited to create new opportunities with the other stations in the CBS Radio Chicago family,” Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips said.  “We want to continue to add unique content offerings for our diverse fan base, and CBS Radio Chicago provides an excellent fit to help us achieve this goal.”

“WBBM ... has been the ‘Voice of the Bears’ for the last 13 seasons and we look forward with great excitement to the years ahead,” said Rod Zimmerman, senior VP and market manager for CBS Radio Chicago.  “The Chicago Bears have long had one of the largest fan bases anywhere in sports, and this partnership offers not only the fans many benefits, but our advertisers who support the broadcasts as well.”

In addition to WBBM's Bears coverage, WSCR-670 The Score will have extended team coverage on "Bears Mondays," and the station will also continue the Bears Noon Hour Update and a Saturday evening vignette feature (which will be replayed on Sundays on WBBM).

Finally, Bears All-Access, 670's one-hour Bears program, will be expanded to run year-round.

The Indiana Broadcasters Association will dole out its 2012 Spectrum Awards on Nov. 10 in Indianapolis, and several Southwestern Indiana radio stations are among this year's finalists.  However, in what's becoming something of a sorry trend, Evansville's TV stations were once again not represented.

Among the radio stations on the list are stations from Evansville, Huntingburg, Jasper and Vincennes.  WVUB-91.1 FM and WIKY-104.1 FM received the most nominations, with Blazer 91.1 getting six nominations and WIKY five.

On the TV side, Terre Haute TV station WTWO-NBC 2 received seven nominations, and WTHI-TV has eight.