Oregon Media Insiders

KEZI and the Oregon Sports Network have split:

The decision is the first local fallout from the UO’s recently signed deal with IMG Communications. IMG agreed to pay the UO $67.1 million over 10 years for advertising, promotion and local broadcast rights for UO sports. KEZI’s decision leaves the university without a local broadcaster just a month before its first football game of the season.

Eugene-based Chambers Communications, KEZI’s parent company, issued a statement Thursday saying the deal offered by IMG left it little choice but to walk away from the contract. ...

Tim Roberts, IMG’s Eugene-based representative, said Chambers’ decision to drop out of negotiations was a surprise. He said talks were centered on how to handle competing programming, when Chambers pulled out Thursday. ...

In an interview Thursday, Scott Chambers said his company paid about $1 million a year for rights to UO sports programming before the UO brought in IMG. Chambers said his company earned a modest profit selling advertising on the shows. Without naming a figure, he said the new deal with IMG would have been a loss for his company.

Wow. I thought OSN was the primary local draw for the station. I continue to hear all kinds of rumblings from down there. What's going on?

It is growing abundantly clear that there are any number of Doubting Thomases lurking in the safety of their anonymity, afraid there may actually be an embryonic media progression gestating in the Mid-Willamette Valley. I understand the skepticism from the Portland elites - those who view all that lies between PDX and San Francisco as fly-over land, barely fit for human existence.