As a result of Craig Carton announcing his departure from WFAN to join FOX Sports 1 to host his morning show on a full-time basis, the station considerably shifted its programming lineup. Led by Chris Oliviero and Spike Eskin, Audacy management made the decision to move Tiki Barber from middays to afternoon drive to pair with Evan Roberts, and in his place, added Sal Licata from overnights. While these moves are bittersweet in the sense that they are thought to represent positive steps in the career arcs of both hosts, the ripple effect it has caused has obviously disheartened some people within the building.
In the midst of his farewell message to his longtime producer Shaun Morash, CBS Sports Radio host Damon Amendolara expressed frustration over Audacy-owned CBS Sports Radio losing talent to WFAN. Within his diatribe, he chided the station’s management for undervaluing the national outlet and making it sound akin to New York sports radio. By the end of it, he declared a New York embargo and deemed he did not want to play clips from WFAN or talk about the local sports teams while promising his listeners “a fresh start.”
The remarks circulated within the building and around the radio industry, leading Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti to discuss his impassioned assertion and the state of affairs in the studios on Thursday morning. The morning program, which routinely ranks No. 1 in the market among the male 25-54 demographic, is currently the longest-tenured program on WFAN.
“There’s been a lot of emotion that has been going on here,” Giannotti said. “I guess that’s a good thing because people like one another. Maybe I’m just jaded because we have now been together; this is year No. 6 that we’re working together and there have been so many changes since I started out in 2018. I feel like the only person that made it out of Pompeii with everything that has gone on after this show ends at 10 a.m.”
After Giannotti read what Amendolara had to say about Audacy management over the air, Esiason quipped that he would be immediately fired for the comments. The question that was then discussed pertained to whether or not Amendolara tried to join Roberts on afternoon drive when the spot became available.
“I think every talk show host that’s in this building that doesn’t have a full-time job during the daytime, or actually isn’t on this show because we’re morning drive, would probably want to have their hat in the ring for this show,” Giannotti said. “That’s sort of assumed that anybody would probably want to move over there.”
Both morning show hosts understand that the comments were made in a state of frustration, especially with Amendolara learning the news on Monday and appearing on the show while on paternity leave to bid a pivotal cast member farewell. Yet if Amendolara was in the situation of Morash with an opportunity to produce the afternoon drive program in the No. 1 media market in the country, they do not believe he would pass it up.
“I know that he is feeling inferior in that sense because they’re plucking away his guy and putting him on another show,” Giannotti commiserated. “In this business when you’re talking about the people that are running this building – we’re talking about the people that are making decisions in this building – [they] are doing it for a reason. I think those who are in charge in this building know what they are doing, and if they believe that it’s more important to have somebody over here than it is over there, then you’ve got to trust it.”
Moving to discuss the new station lineup, Giannotti and Esiason know that the expectation in middays will consist of protracted, impassioned and vociferous debate between Brandon Tierney and Sal Licata. Being in radio long enough though, Giannotti is fairly certain that it will at least fall short of expectations in the beginning before there being some moment of combustion that catalyzes the program and allows it to find its stride.
“Just the ‘Kumbaya’ moments around here are just getting out of control though really, honestly,” Esiason said. “You need some fireworks; that’s what we’re hoping for, I guess, with Sal and BT. Man, that’s going to be some fireworks.”
