My mom loved watching NBC’s Today when I was a kid. It was almost always on in our house when I was getting ready for school. In fact, it was my primary childhood news source. This is why I remember one day when their lead news story was the New York City sanitation workers strike. Oddly, that had very little impact on a family living in Alabama.
Even as a high schooler, I vividly remember thinking this was probably a major story for the NBC staff that had to dodge trash bags on their way to work like they were in a real life game of Frogger. But for the rest of their audience, the other 330 million Americans, who really cares? There has always been a blind spot with the big heritage media: there is a world outside of New York City.
Sports television is not exempt from this. FOX Sports was in search of a new morning show to replace First Things First and that search never left Manhattan. WFAN afternoon host Craig Carton has launched his 7AM ET show The Carton Show which will feature Carton and a rotating panel of guest hosts. Carton is the second WFAN host to appear on FS1, they launched their network with Mike Francesca’s WFAN show in the afternoons.
Carton’s show will go head-to-head with another show on CBS Sports Network. That show is Boomer and Gio on, you guessed it, WFAN. The show will also compete with ESPN’s Keyshawn, JWill and Max, hosted by New Jersey native Jay Williams, former New York Jet Keyshawn Johnson and lifelong New York media personality Max Kellerman. At this point I think we should all at least be entitled to free Mets tickets.
Do not get me wrong, Craig Carton is very talented. If you haven’t observed his career, a few simple facts should convince you of his talent. First, Carton was excelling in mornings on WFAN with Boomer Esiason as his co-host. That run in mornings was brought to an abrupt end by an arrest and conviction of Carton on a securities and fraud charge. After serving 12 months of a three year sentence, Carton walked out of prison and right back to WFAN’s daily lineup.
That, alone, should indicate the regard in the industry for Carton’s talent. If that is not enough, consider the fact that Carton, along with his co-host Evan Roberts, have returned WFAN afternoons to the the once dominant levels of Mike Francesca. Michael Kay’s show on ESPN New York had taken the afternoon ratings lead after Francesca’s multiple retirements.
My question is not about the talents of any of the aforementioned New York media personalities. My question is: if these exact same people had their exact same talent in Denver or Kansas City or Minneapolis, would they be given these opportunities?
Take, for instance, ESPN Radio’s daily lineup. After the trio of New York connections in the mornings, you can continue your day with New York native Mike Greenberg. Greeny is followed by former New York Jet and WFAN host Bart Scott and New York broadcaster Alan Hahn. Following that, catch former New York Giant and ESPN New York host Chris Canty teaming up with former ESPN New York and WFAN host Chris Carlin. I kid you not.
I don’t spend much time listening to ESPN Radio’s daily line-up, as I don’t take the Lincoln Tunnel to get to work. That said, I’m certain I can get my “New York City Weather and Traffic on the Eights” all day long on ESPN Radio. By the way, if New York centric sports talk isn’t your thing, only half of CBS Sports Radio’s hosts are from New York or once worked at WFAN.
For those of us who live outside the northeast, it feels like those that do the hiring of ESPN and FOX talk show talent are still waiting to hear back from Lewis and Clark if anything exists outside their world. New York City is the nation’s top media market, there’s no doubt you have to be immensely talented to thrive there. That doesn’t mean everyone is interested in the New York perspective.
A cynic might suggest these networks have stacked their talk shows with faces familiar to New Yorkers in an effort to shamelessly grab ratings in the nation’s top TV market. I’ve seen crazier things done in an effort to grab ratings but that one would seem rather short-sighted. I think it is more about network executives hiring people they already have comfort with, people they have seen and heard for years already.
Either way, there’s a big world out there. I just wish the New Yorkers would let us hear from it every now and then.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
