On Friday, Fred Toucher revealed that longtime radio co-host Rich Shertenlieb departed 98.5 The Sports Hub and the Toucher & Rich show, ending a successful 17-year run together. The news surprised many listeners of the program, which continuously finished at the top of the ratings and most recently attained a 15.1 share in the Boston designated market area. Because of how quickly and abruptly the iteration of the morning program concluded, Toucher figured that he would face more questions about the development on Monday morning.
Sure enough, a caller wanted to hear more about the assertion Toucher had made that he did not genuinely know much about Shertenlieb off the air. After Toucher implored the caller to compliment him about his ad-lib performance on Friday morning – something the show quipped they would submit for a Marconi Award next year – he expounded on the point to provide more clarity regarding the situation.
“In terms of his personal life, he probably found me incredibly annoying because I’m always telling everyone everything about me,” Toucher said Monday morning on 98.5 The Sports Hub, “and I just feel like out of people I’ve known for 20 years, I know every single one of them more than I know Rich.”
Toucher asked the caller how much he knew about Shertenlieb in terms of comparison, and expressed that there are a lot of perceptions about the show that are simply false. In response, the caller shared their cognizance of the show being successful and popular and identified the appeal of the program as providing the audience with a true representation of what the program was about.
Shertenlieb sent Toucher a text message on Saturday, the contents of which Toucher neglected to divulge on the air to protect the trust that he had fostered with his longtime co-host. In the interest of full transparency, however, Toucher decided to read the response he wrote to Shertenlieb on the air so listeners could better understand the scope of the situation.
“Hey, so good to hear from you,” Toucher’s reply read. “As I’m sure you heard, I had no idea that Thursday was it. I definitely would have said goodbye. I’m very grateful for our time together. Thanks so much for your hard work. Even at the end, the hours of 6 to 10 were some of the greatest of my day. Hope everything is awesome with you and your family.”
Other show contributors in the studio lauded Fred Toucher’s professionalism within the message, calling the response a magnanimous gesture. During that discourse, Toucher said, “That’s a guy who might have tried to get me… and I still did that,” omitting the defining modifier within the statement. He also heard the rumors that Shertenlieb was at WEEI on Friday meeting with station management, an outlet that Toucher advised his former co-host against joining on Monday morning.
“As someone who still does care about him – and I truly like him – I would hope that he just does something where he can just flex that comedic bone and have fun,” Toucher said. “He doesn’t like negativity; he doesn’t like being drawn into it with the likes of me. Just go somewhere fun – go somewhere where it’s more fun – where you don’t have to talk about this crap.”
Another caller decided to chime in to the conversation and suggested that Toucher was more apt to placate demands from the corporate sector of the station than Shertenlieb. In his answer, Toucher conveyed that one of the big things he did with corporate was to benefit Shertenlieb, trying to help him and get him to calm down at the station. Rather than bending over backwards, as the caller implicated, he equated the gesture to more of being able to take the difficulties thrown towards the show.
With the morning show looking to name a new permanent co-host by the start of the new year, Fred Toucher is excited about the next chapter of the program. In fact, he just signed a contract extension with 98.5 The Sports Hub and is grateful to be on the air again after difficulties with his vocal cords that still may require surgery in the future.
“People have been asking me – my advice to Rich would be like, ‘Dude, you’re great at production; you just want to have fun,’” Fred Toucher said. “‘Go get a radio job that’s super fun where people aren’t dicks. I don’t know why you want to do sports radio.’”
