94WIP afternoon host Jon Marks raised eyebrows around the industry earlier this month when he announced he was exiting the timeslot he shared with Ike Reese. He has now expounded upon his reasoning.
During an interview with Crossing Broad, Marks revealed that he has known since late 2022 that he would be departing the Philadelphia sports station.
“I’ve known this was coming for a year. We tried to work things out and they (WIP management) were very respectful of the way I felt about everything… There’s the children thing, there’s the quality of life thing, and there’s the financial thing,” said Marks. “And the financial thing was third. But it’s still a part of it, right? People will say ‘Either it’s about your family or it’s not,’ but it also gets to a financial point where you say, ‘I can’t say no to that for my family.’
“I can’t say no to that. It can pay for my kids’ college, or I can buy a shore house to where I can spend more time and commute from the shore in the summer. There are ways you can get around it that help your quality of life when you’re still doing the same thing that maybe you hate. More vacation, more money, things like that.”
Jon Marks also noted the precarious financial situation that Audacy — parent company of 94WIP — is in played a role in his departure.
“The company that owns WIP — Audacy — is $1.9 billion in debt. Now, how do you get out of debt? Well, you have to pay off your debt. So next year they owe $400-$500 million in debt service. They’re losing money on a quarterly basis. So when your business loses money, how do you pay off half a billion dollars of debt coming up? You lay people off, you cut costs, and even then it’s not doing anything. They’re going to have to declare for bankruptcy. It’s a matter of when, not if they do it.
“After Angelo was gone, they said ‘Hey we’re not paying people Angelo money anymore, we’re not paying people Howard money, we’re not paying people Anthony Gargano money.’ (It was) ‘this is what we’re willing to offer you.”
So funny,I guess now marks will live off the grid and grow a garden to feed his family,what a joke,who is he to care the stations problems,he needs to worry about supporting his family,there’s no doubt he has another job lined up,he just was insulted they wouldn’t give him a contact,marks had a steady job,no way they were getting rid of him,he would be there for years and years but his head got to big,he found another job that gave him a contract probably the phonetic so he is jumping ship,watch he will go there,he won’t go right away to make it obvious but he will go there….fact