With a foundation built on Ducks sports, KUGN is committed to collaboration, community, and consistency with regard to local content.
Most well-known for being the sole Eugene radio station with Ducks sports broadcasting rights, KUGN has had a long-standing presence in our area, particularly among the crowd of 30- to 60-year-olds and beyond.
KUGN was one of the original stations to carry Ducks sports in the 50s. And they’ve aggressively sought to keep those broadcasting rights ever since, aside from a few-year-period in the 80s when another station snatched the rights from KUGN.
Every 10 years, the University of Oregon puts Ducks sports broadcasting rights up for bid, and highest bidder gets them. Eric Dye, a KUGN radio personality, says, “We pay a substantial amount of money each year.” Dye wouldn’t reveal the exact amount the station pays for these rights.
Of course, it’s worth it to KUGN to fork over some extra cash for this essential component of the station’s programming. Play-by-play sports programming draws traffic, and in turn the station attracts a lot of advertisers.
Part of what makes KUGN notable is its heritage and long-time standing. Mark Raney, program director at KUGN, says, “A lot of stations have only been here five minutes, but we’ve been here a long time.”
The station has been broadcasting since the 1940s, though it hasn’t always been devoted to talk news and sports programs. Until the 1980s, KUGN was more of a music station, featuring jazz and adult contemporary, than a talk news station. This is mostly due to the fact that FM stations weren’t widely available until the late 60s, so all music and talk stations were located on the AM frequency. With the development of FM radio, which has a wider broadcasting range, music stations moved to FM for the most part, leaving AM stations like KUGN to take over the talk news segments. While KUGN was “one thing when it started, it’s been something similar to what you hear today since the 80s,” Raney says.
The types of broadcasts heard on KUGN are not the only things that have changed over the years. KUGN is currently an ABC affiliate, meaning it carries many of the network’s broadcasts, but it hasn’t always been. Originally, the station was affiliated with NBC, but the FCC split this national network into separate networks to more evenly disperse the power. Dye says, “Over time it became less popular to have a single network with all of your programming.” Today, KUGN features news from multiple networks, including ABC and NBC. “We kind of have a hodgepodge of networks,” Dye says.
Over the past year and a half, KUGN has developed a strong relationship with local TV broadcasting station KVAL. The two stations pair to share stories and KVAL’s meteorologists are regularly featured on KUGN’s daily morning and afternoon programs.
KUGN also has a strong relationship with Eugene’s Register Guard. Each week, editors from the Register Guard explain big local issues, which are often controversial and difficult to understand, and try to get to the bottom of them over the air on KUGN. Some of the recent stories Register Guard editors have discussed on KUGN include the string of city employee emails that included racist and sexist comments, and the Bellotti buyout.
But KUGN’s relationships with other media stretch beyond the local Eugene area. The AM station also partners with a local ducks sport affiliate in Roseburg, KQEN News Radio 1240. The two stations have a reciprocal relationship, and when one finds a big news story, it will file a report and share it with the other. Trading stories makes it easier for the stations to report on stories beyond their broadcasting areas.
KUGN aims to be like a member of the community by contributing to various causes. The station participates in food drives, often with Food for Lane County, and also sponsors several community events, including the March of Dimes and March for Babies.
KUGN also uses its partnership with the University of Oregon to involve a greater portion of the community in canned food drives and get the word out about current benefits and events. Before the recent UO football team’s spring scrimmage game, KUGN hosted speakers from Food for Lane County to explain the benefits of food drives and describe who benefits.
Dye says, “We’re vested in the community, and we want KUGN to represent everybody that listens to us.” Dye says the station really wants to remain a respected member of the community. This is also a major goal of most newspapers, Dye says. All of the collective staff members and contributors make it similar to a person, he says. “That’s our goal with KUGN: To make it an accurate cross-section of the community.”
What about KUGN’s future?
Raney predicts KUGN will remain consistent and “keep going day after day so people can always rely on us.” He says the station is always working to get better, though, for the most part, he expects the station will continue to provide the public with “a good helping of the same.” So, for now, KUGN will continue to provide the Eugene local area with extensive coverage on everything from news and events to prize giveaways.
“We hang our hat on Ducks sports and local news,” Raney says.
Camille Rasmussen is a Journalism student at the University of Oregon who is minoring in French and Business Administration. Learn more about Camille at her website.
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