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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Attempts To Revive Voice Fail Espn Nixes Kga’s Request To Use Robertson’s Rose Bowl Call

Terms of the contract stand.

The Voice of the Cougars, Bob Robertson, won’t be heard on New Year’s Day in Spokane, when Washington State plays its biggest football game in 67 years.

Instead of Robertson and analyst Paul Sorensen on New Year’s Day, the Spokane radio market will get ESPN’s team of Charlie Steiner and Todd Christensen.

ESPN owns national radio rights to the Michigan-Washington State game. It will be carried on KGA 1510-AM, the ESPN affiliate in Spokane.

The Cougar station in Spokane, KXLY, can’t carry the game.

But while talk show hosts of the two rival stations - KGA and KXLY - waged a war of words Wednesday, the program manager at KGA said he did seek some common ground in an attempt to get Robertson’s call of the game on the air in Spokane.

He said his work came up short.

KGA program director Dean Allen said, “There’s no way ESPN will allow the Bob Robertson broadcast here. The only way we could get it is to have the Cougar network flagship station in Seattle, KJR, agree to take the ESPN feed (and let KGA have the Robertson account of the game).

“And (Dave) Iverson won’t let them do that,” Allen said. “KJR contractually is the flagship station.”

Iverson’s company, Broadcast Ink, owns radio rights to Cougar football. Under terms of ESPN’s contract with the Pac-10 Conference and the Rose Bowl, only the Crimson and Gray sports network flagship station, KJR, and the non-commercial campus radio station in Pullman, KWSU 1250-AM, can air the local WSU broadcast with Robertson and Sorensen.

Allen said he tried to swing a compromise with ESPN in Dallas that would have allowed KGA to air ESPN commercials in Spokane with the Robertson broadcast.

“We have the Rose Bowl,” Allen said. “I was trying to get Bob and Paul to do the game for us in this market. Unfortunately, ESPN won’t allow that. That’s understandable with contracts. If they did it here they’d have to do it elsewhere.”

Radio audiences in Spokane perceive that KGA is “shutting Bob Robertson out of this market,” Allen said, “and that’s not true. Even if KXLY had the game they’d have to use ESPN.

“I talked with (KXLY program director) Brian Paul. If this is the big stink, that Bob isn’t doing the playby-play in this market, I’d do what I could to get him here. With the contracts and stuff it can’t be done.”

, DataTimes