Back in March of this year, rumors started to circulate that Mike Missanelli, who had been with 97.5 The Fanatic for 15 years before he exited in May 2022, might be on his way back to the station. Station owner Beasley Media Group recently made a change at the top in the market as Paul Blake, formerly the market’s Vice President and Director of Sales, took over as the cluster’s manager. Kevin Kinkead of Crossing Broad wondered if the change at the top could lead to Missanelli coming back. He also posted something Missanelli said at the end of a recent podcast episode:
“One other thing that people have been asking me about. My old station fired their general manager. This was the same general manager that decided not to renew my contract two years ago, almost to the day. He’s gone. I don’t know what’s going to happen at that station. I will tell you this, however – that station, in the last couple of months, has made me an offer. I can’t tell you much more about that, because if the offer was satisfactory to me, I probably would be on the radio. But at this point, it is not. So with new management coming in, I have no idea what will happen here. I just want to say this – I am committed to this podcast and I am going to do this podcast for a really long period of time and the other stuff really doesn’t matter to me. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t, I’m good, because I like spending time with you here on the podcast.”
When the idea of Missannelli comin back was brought up three months ago, new station Program Director Scott Masteller had said at the time, “Mike’s name has come up. He’s a great talent, and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. A lot of people are interested in the radio station right now. So I’ll leave it at that.”
As for where Missanelli might fit in should he return, the midday show, Mid-Days with Bob Cooney has been using various hosts since Cooney moved to the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. show a few months ago. Bill Colarulo and Amy Faddol have been two of the people who have worked with Cooney recently.
