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When the University of Maine and Learfield Communications awarded radio broadcast rights to Clear Channel last year, Black Bear sports weren’t the only losses for Bangor all-sports station WZON.
The fallout of Learfield’s decision to end a 14-year relationship with WZON (620 AM) has continued in recent months as some longtime WZON broadcasters and personalities have also ended their association with The Sports Zone.
The first regular WZON voice to be muted was that of Rich Kimball, who has been the radio play-by-play voice of UMaine football for the last decade. Kimball opted to continue doing UM football games with broadcast partner Bob Lucy for a 10th season last fall with Clear Channel.
“We talked about it quite awhile, from the time I decided last spring,” said Kimball, a Brewer Middle School coordinator and Brewer High drama club director. “We were in discussions all summer as to what that meant to my relationship with WZON.”
WZON station officials decided it would mean the end of that 15-year relationship, which included everything from college and high school game broadcasts, morning show appearances and a regular “breakfast club” trivia feature that earned him the moniker of “the professor of the college of useless sports knowledge.”
Other longtime broadcasters no longer on WZON after taking UMaine radio jobs with Clear Channel are Jim Churchill (baseball) and Dan Hannigan (hockey).
“We came to the conclusion that it’s too much of a confusion issue,” said Dale Duff, WZON’s program director, morning show host and senior broadcaster. “In the end, they’re doing sports for another radio station in our competitive market, so we can’t really have that situation where you have one person working for two competing stations.”
Kimball says he and Duff have had to agree to disagree.
“I see his point, but I just don’t agree with it. I think people are more savvy about things like that,” the 49-year-old Kimball said. “My contract is with Learfield, not Clear Channel.”
Missouri-based Learfield is the multimedia consulting rights arm of UMaine’s athletic department which owns and manages Black Bear Sports Properties, which handled the radio rights bidding/awarding process to UM sports.
“Their contracts are with Learfield, but their voices are on a competing station,” countered Duff. “We’re still doing sports and still doing games, but he’s in essence going right up against whatever we do in that time slot. Isn’t that head-to-head competition?”
Duff said the scenarios involving Kimball, Hannigan and Churchill were different, but the main issues were identical.
“It wouldn’t be any different if it were back in the days when we were bidding against WABI and WABI won the contract and wanted to hire our guys to come do games for them,” Duff said. “What we are is sports and voices and personalities and so to share what we have with competitors probably doesn’t make strong business sense.”
Churchill, a UMaine graduate and Bangor businessman, worked with WZON for 13 years in various capacities and was known as WZON’s “Reverend of the House of the Red Sox Faithful” for the last 10 years.
“When Clear Channel took over, I figured I wouldn’t be doing UM baseball anymore,” said Churchill, who is in his eighth season calling Black Bears baseball. “When Learfield called me, knowing what happened with Rich and having some conversations with Dale, I knew what was coming if I decided to do UM baseball. I agonized over it for two weeks.”
Churchill, Kimball and Hannigan signed three-year deals with Clear Channel. Duff said he’s heard speculation that their departures from WZON was his call, but they all resulted from “a company-wide determination.”
“I would make the argument that it’s not really our decision. It’s theirs,” said Duff. “They wanted to do football or baseball more than they wanted to do stuff for us. We can’t hold them back.”
Churchill, 46, said, “The deciding factor for me is I love baseball and have enjoyed doing UM baseball more than anything else I’ve done.”
Churchill understands Duff’s rationale.
“I’m comfortable with my decision, but I’m sorry I’m not part of WZON any more,” he said. “To some extent on the business side, I see their point.
“The pie’s only so big as far as the advertising in this market. I do understand not being cool on the idea of having one person work for two stations in the same city.”
Still, Churchill also sees room for compromise.
“I see both sides, but in the Learfield contract, there are no restrictions on us doing other broadcasting,” Churchill said. “Here’s my point: There’s two pieces, a political side which involves people’s feelings and then there’s the business side.
“I see some of the business side with the competition. But on the other side, like with Rich, I think you can still use him as an asset for at least three-quarters of the year against that competition during the other quarter.”
Duff doesn’t see that as sufficient enough to override the confusion factor.
“It can blur the lines over time,” Duff said. “When Rich and I talked, it would always come back to ‘people aren’t going to care and it’s only 11 games a year.’ It’s just not a numbers thing, it’s the whole total confusion thing as to who they’re associated with.”
aneff@bangordailynews.net
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