Nothing stays the same for very long in radio. That’s definitely true in New York. While Michael Kay has managed to remain a stalwart for ESPN New York, his show has certainly changed and so has the station.
This week, The Michael Kay Show celebrates 22 years on the air in The Big Apple. Kay, along with his co-hosts Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg, have found a way to evolve while delivering a consistent product every afternoon.
“From the very first show to the show today, yeah, it’s completely different,” Kay says. “I think it’s the same sensibility to kind of mix fun and sports and pop culture, but I think it’s evolved to a finer version of that over the years.”
When the show launched, Kay admits that he and La Greca had different ideas and maybe were given different directions by their bosses. La Greca always believed he was coming in to co-host. Kay was told that his new partner was only there “just in case.” If his line dropped out while he was on the road or if he needed a voice to bounce an idea off of, Don was there, but he didn’t have to be involved in every segment of every show.
After some trial, error and evolution, Kay now realizes how hard it would have been to get to 22 years under his belt if he insisted on being a solo act. He certainly knows that without Don La Greca by his side, a lot of people would think of him and his show differently.
“I think it’s fair to say that Don has evolved into the most important part of the show,” he says, adding that it’s possible that La Greca is still underrated. “I think people relate to him more than they probably relate to me. They look at him as the everyman. He’s perfect for sports talk radio. He’s got the emotion.”
A 22-year run is full of highlights and Kay remembers his fondly, but he tries to stay focused on the future, because of all the aforementioned change. It’s not just in his own hallways.
ESPN New York’s chief competition, WFAN, has seen some big changes over the last calendar year, starting with the exit of Craig Carton, the launch of a new weekday line up, and earlier this year, the exit of program director Spike Eskin. WFAN is now lead by Ryan Hurley, who was Kay’s producer and then his program director until last year.
Hurley lost his job at ESPN New York in a cost cutting move. For that reason, Kay is happy to see his old friend get another shot to prove his worth in this business, but he admits that the situation is strange and maybe even a bit uncomfortable.
“Ryan was phenomenal. It’s kind of weird knowing that he kind of knows the state secrets of our show and now he’s our competition,” he says.
There’s also been a big change in the way Kay thinks about his show’s success. There was a time when the only thing that mattered was the Nielsen ratings. Now, that isn’t necessarily true.
Nielsen still uses its formulas to estimate how many people are listening to what station, but those numbers, however accurate they are, don’t matter to Kay’s bosses like they used to. Good Karma Brands, which now operates ESPN New York, measures its success through more tangible digital metrics.
That’s great news for Michael Kay, who as the voice of the Yankees, has people all over the world that want to hear what he has to say.
“We get phone calls literally from Australia, from Israel and places like that,” he says. “I think that the world that we live in right now with downloads, podcasts and streaming, every show has a reach that you could not even imagine ten years ago. I mean, we’re kind of a national show, so I think it’s up to the people that run the station and people that sell to somehow monetize the fact that we reach such a wide, wide swath of people. It’s not just the New York metropolitan area. We don’t change the show that we do because people listen in California or Colorado, but I think that there is definitely something there that smart people can monetize and turn into profits because the reach is incredible.”
As we celebrate the start of a new year of shows for Michael Kay, it’s important to remember that we almost didn’t get here. Retirement was heavy on his mind last year, when he was working on a new deal. When you do radio five days a week and then call a full season of Major League Baseball games on television for YES and ESPN, it’s understandable to take stock of what stays and what goes.
The subject came up again, this time in relation to his play-by-play duties, earlier this year when he watched his friend and longtime colleague John Sterling decide he was done as the radio voice of the Yankees.
“It really hit me because we’re so close. And then I started thinking about my professional mortality as well. But then I started to think, ‘you know, John is 23 years older than me,’ right? So, I don’t think that I’m at that point right now,” Kay says. “You know, you do think about it. But I still think I’m an infant in my head, so I’m physically, I’m older than I was, but as long as I feel and think young, yeah, I’m going to continue to do it. And as long as I can continue to carve out the most important thing, which is time for the kids and the family then it just makes that really, really easy. Then I’ll continue to do it.”
For now, Michael Kay isn’t worried about retirement. He has two kids, a nine and an eleven-year-old. He realizes that the day may come where he may have to say goodbye to radio in order to get all the time with them that he wants, but that day isn’t today. Today, he judges his radio future in a simple way.
“I still feel good. I still feel I have stuff to say. We still have it,” he says. “I judge it this way: When I do the show, are we having fun? Does it go fast? And most of the time I have fun and it goes fast.”
Until Michael Kay stops having fun, he isn’t making any plans for what comes after radio.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
