Dan McDowell and Jake Kemp want to be done with Cumulus Media. The former Dallas sports talk hosts have asked a federal court in Texas to throw out the lawsuit Cumulus filed against them claiming that their podcast The Dumb Zone is too similar to The Hang Zone, which thee hosted on The Ticket for three years before leaving the station over the summer.
Their argument is that the federal court does not have proper jurisdiction over the case, and that it should instead be heard by the National Labor Relations Board. Cumulus has claimed that McDowell and Kemp secretly recorded their contract negotiations to remain at The Ticket.
There is a no recording rule in the Cumulus employee handbook. The motion to dismiss says that Cumulus is confusing a company rule with federal law.
McDowell and Kemp also dispute that they have violated their non-disparagement clauses. Cumulus claims that the two have revealed confidential information on the podcast. The Dumb Zone hosts contend that there is no reason to object to what they have discussed – the Ticket’s plan to replace them, management being skeptical that they could succeed in a digital venture, Kemp’s salary, and the cease and desist letter the company sent them upon the launch of the podcast.
“None of these four things appear to be ‘confidential information’ even under the extremely broad terms of the confidentiality rule at issue here,” the filing from McDowell and Kemp reads.
If the judge does not dismiss the case, McDowell and Kemp argue that she should at least compel Cumulus to provide more concrete examples of its claims against them, calling the lawsuit “so vague and ambiguous”.
Rooting for Dan and Jake here, Cumulus (and a couple of Ticket employees) have handled this in the most pathetic way possible. This isn’t The Ticket’s fault, but unfortunately they’ve lost so much talent in the past few years that I’ve moved on to The Freak. It’s unfortunate but this is what happens when a local gem is owned by a national shill company with no ties to the culture of either the listeners or the station.