D/FW Radio: Cumulus Versus McDowell & Kemp Headed To Mediation

It's shaping up to be a battle of old and new media. The legal tussle between Cumulus Media and former KTCK-AM/FM, Dallas-Fort Worth sports talk hosts Dan McDowell and Jake Kemp is being ordered to mediation by U.S. District Court Judge Karen Gren Scholer. 

Cumulus had petitioned the court for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop the duo from publishing their podcast “The Dumb Zone,” arguing that it violates the terms of their contracts, specifically the non-compete clause. 

In response to the suit filed by Cumulus, McDowell and Kemp argue, “Plaintiff’s business is the operation of terrestrial radio stations (old media) and it was only in that business that Plaintiff employed Defendants. Plaintiff has realized only too late that it should have been moving into new media platforms for years now. Defendants’ new venture does not compete with Plaintiff, and their words and actions have complied with the restrictive covenants of their employment contracts despite, as will be shown below, almost all of those covenants are illegal restrictions on Defendants’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act.” Mediation has been set for August 22.

McDowell and Kemp

Cumulus maintains “The Dumb Zone” podcast launched by McDowell and Kemp three weeks after they left KTCK is “a carbon copy” of “The Hang Zone,” which they hosted on the station for years.

Filed by Cumulus on Aug. 4 in U.S. District Court in Dallas, the suit seeks “to halt and prevent Defendants’ continuous, flagrant breaches of contract and misappropriation of Susquehanna’s intellectual property rights.”

McDowell and Kemp, who had been with The Ticket since 1999 and 2006 respectively, resigned July 14 after more than three years in the noon-to-3pm slot. Each of the hosts had a six-month non-compete clause in their contract with Cumulus, along with confidentiality and non-solicitation provisions.

According to the complaint, the two hosts began recording “an identical” podcast called “The Dumb Zone” covering Dallas-area sports and targeting a male audience, once they knew they were parting ways with the station. Within days of splitting with “The Ticket,” McDowell and Kemp posted the podcast on Patreon, charging listeners $6.90 per month to listen.