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Tuesday, August 8, 2023

D/FW Radio: Cumulus Sues McDowell & Kemp For Breach of Contract


Just a few weeks after contract negotiations broke down between Cumulus Media and KTCK The Ticket’s Dan McDowell and Jake Kemp, Cumulus Media, the company’s parent, has filed a lawsuit alleging the two breached their contracts, reports D Magazine.

Kemp and McDowell co-hosted The Hang Zone, the station’s noon-to-3 show, since 2020. McDowell had been with the station since 1999, while Kemp joined the station in 2009. The pair resigned in mid July and have since launched a Patreon-based podcast called The Dumb Zone.

The suit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas, claims the two are in violation of noncompete agreements they signed in 2018, the start date of their last contract with The Ticket. 


In a video posted two weeks ago, the two said that they had been operating without a contract for 19 days.

“A lot of headlines are like ‘Dan and Jake resigned from The Ticket,’ which is technically true-not true—the only thing is our contracts were expired,” McDowell said. When neither side could come to an agreement on new contracts, they were asked to resign.

“So then we did,” McDowell continued. “Personally, I am not pissed. I’m not mad at Cumulus. It’s fine. That’s their thing, their evaluation of the situation and our evaluation of the situation is that we felt like it was fine to move on, they felt like it was fine to move on from us and here we are.”

“In the end, I think it’s all fine for everybody,” McDowell said. “The P1s will still get all their great entertainment—maybe in different places at different times. Cumulus Nation will survive and kill it because The Ticket’s great.”

Cumulus served the two with a cease-and-desist after the launch of their new The Dumb Zone podcast, which offers listeners the ability to pay $6.90 each month for ad-free content.

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