When ESPN New York made lineup changes that included the addition of a new, local morning drive show in 2021, Rick DiPietro needed to change his wake-up call. Over his seven prior years on the airwaves, DiPietro had hosted shows in virtually every daypart outside of morning drive, honing his craft and connecting with the audience.
The zealous crowd that he previously witnessed from his vantage point between the pipes was now making its voice heard through the phone lines, forging individual connections with discussion and debate over sports. Although rising at 2:30 a.m. ET does not get easier, he considers himself fortunate to have a platform in New York, to raise his family and retain his link to competition.
DiPietro does not leave for the studios until an hour-and-a-half after awakening, engaging in a morning routine beforehand to safeguard against negligence and insufficient preparation. On nights before a show, he tries to stay up as late as possible to watch an array of sporting events and completes the rest of his film study in the morning via DVR replay. Before the sun rises, DiPietro is en route to New York City where he meets with producers RJ Santillo and Ray Santiago, along with morning co-host Dave Rothenberg.
Whenever he is on the air, DiPietro seeks to convey his genuine personality to the listening audience and abstains from fabricating his character. Akin to his colleagues, whom he is frequently asked about by fans of the show, he speaks with the same humor, jest and wit that has rendered him an enduring on-air personality.
“Honestly, I behave the same way I would behave in front of my buddies or at home,” DiPietro said. “Nothing really changes, which is, I guess the best part of the whole thing is it doesn’t have to be an act. My relationship with those guys is the same on the air as it is off the air.”
DiPietro looks to provide listeners with information pertaining to athletes, teams and leagues around the sports landscape, but he is also cognizant of the need to balance such discussion with entertaining circumstances. For example, the show presents a block titled “Stump Rothenberg” in which DiPietro’s co-host is presented with questions requiring deep thought to answer correctly. Rothenberg is living out his dream, DiPietro explained, emblazoning his passion within his knowledge and hosting prowess.
“What makes him the best in my opinion and why I love him so much is because I could pretty much say anything I [want] to him, and it doesn’t bother him at all,” DiPietro articulated. “It’s not going to end up [with him being] mad at me, [and] there’s not going to be a fight. We both have that kind of personality where it’s like we don’t mind taking it. There’s not a lot that could be said that’s going to hurt our feelings.”
Establishing and maintaining an environment wherein a successful morning program could exist encompassed trusting one another and always remembering the audience. There are varying opinions about the role of callers in sports talk radio, but the DiPietro & Rothenberg program has made its stance clear by dedicating segments to subjects broached by their listeners.
“It’s funny because it’s not even sports topics a lot of the time,” DiPietro said. “It can be, ‘What’s your favorite sandwich?,’ or something completely off the cuff that, the second you mention it, the phone lines light up and you’re taking calls on it, so it’s really kind of giving them the opportunity to make a point, go back and forth, have a discussion – that’s the fun part is having a discussion – and then kind of just being their sounding board for whatever it is they want to talk about.”
When DiPietro first began working in the morning drive daypart, he expressed his desire for the program to replicate an environment similar to that of a locker room. Integrating lighthearted revelry and a cheerful, buoyant disposition while remaining attuned with what to discuss has engendered a gameplan the team looks to execute. It aligns back to DiPietro’s 10-year career in the NHL as a goaltender for the New York Islanders imbued with glimmers of success amidst trials and tribulations.
DiPietro was averse to sports talk radio as an athlete, desiring to remain impervious towards the court of public opinion. Following his retirement, he happened to be listening to Alan Hahn, a reporter who formerly covered the Islanders on the team beat for Newsday, as he was hosting a radio program. Someone asked Hahn a question related to the NHL to which DiPietro knew the answer, prompting him to text the information. After Hahn divulged the message he had received, he implored DiPietro to try taking the air, an entreaty to which he eventually obliged following demonstrated persistence.
“I went in the city with him one night to fill in with him for Dave [Rothenberg] – ironically, it was Dave’s show, his 7 to 10 show, we filled in – and he kind of tagged the last show,” DiPietro said. “It was, ‘We’re going to keep doing this until they tell us to stop,’ so [the] next night we did it again.”
ESPN New York made changes to its on-air lineup ahead of the 2014 NHL season that introduced a three-hour weekday evening show co-hosted by DiPietro and Hahn. The pairing that came to be known as Hahn & Humpty proved fortuitous and built off trust that had been established during DiPietro’s playing days.
Before Hahn petitioned DiPietro to consider pursuing a role in the industry, he spoke to him about how to work with media members. The discussion contributed to the basis of their relationship, which continued to expand through the years as the show flourished, was moved to the midday timeslot and gained a highlights simulcast on MSG Networks.
The station added former NFL defensive lineman and Super Bowl champion Chris Canty to the program in 2016, supplying listeners with firsthand perspective from an athlete recently removed from the sport. ESPN New York made additional lineup adjustments one year later that moved Hahn back in the nighttime slot where he began and added Rothenberg to the midday show with DiPietro and Canty.
“The last thing that we wanted to do was kind of be talking over each other and everything else,” DiPietro said, “and one of the things that I think, I don’t know, I bring to the table is kind of like that quick-witted, throw in a comment, and that’s not as easy with three people. So, it was nothing that was too hard, but from two to three, it’s an adjustment.”
Good Karma Brands officially assumed operations over ESPN New York 98.7 FM and purchased the 1050 AM frequency as part of a larger transaction with The Walt Disney Company finalized in 2022. Adopting a dual management structure in which executives from both companies have oversight regarding different areas of the station brought about some changes, but DiPietro still feels that the station is growing and is able to connect with its listeners.
With the lease of the 98.7 FM frequency expiring at the end of August, Good Karma Brands has elected not to pursue a new deal with owner Emmis Communications and is now encouraging listeners to ‘reset their preset.’ Internal data from the company demonstrates that 60% of ESPN New York listenership emanates outside of terrestrial radio is now instead focusing its strategy on digital distribution while maintaining the AM component.
“[There are] many ways to find us, so for all the people that we have listening to us now on 98.7, we’re trying to take them with us, and it’s not going to be easy and we have our work cut out for us,” DiPietro said, “but we feel like we put on a really good four-hour-show and the people that enjoy us are going to be able to find us.”
The company also stopped subscribing to market ratings data from Nielsen at the start of the year, eliminating the traditional means of scoring programs and measuring the competition. DiPietro would use statistics and other metrics to measure his success as a hockey player, and he had been employing other quantitative benchmarks to evaluate the broadcast venture. While the proverbial scoreboard is no longer accessible for the station, he trusts Good Karma Brands and the vision that the company has in growing its properties.
“Right now, we’re doing the simulcast where we’re 98.7 [and] we’re 1050 AM,” DiPietro said. “Our app is great – the ESPN New York app is a great app – so we’re just kind of playing it by ear here, but as far as what their vision is, I trust what Good Karma’s doing.”
Without traditional ratings to guide his systematic calculation of the show, DiPietro concatenates benchmarks and touchpoints based on a variety of different factors. One of these intangible references occurs when he is coaching baseball for his son’s team and how he is recognized for his on-air work. DiPietro recalled that someone approached him at a recent baseball game and expressed how they loved listening to him in morning drive, a recurring pattern. Even though the show itself takes place in the same daypart within the studios, it is hardly monotonous nor burdensome.
“As hard as it is to wake up every day, getting in there, seeing the guys, talking sports [and] laughing selfishly, I think, [is] the reason why I wanted it to be kind of a locker room-feel,” DiPietro said. “[That is] the thing I miss most about professional sports is the locker room, is the camaraderie with my teammates, and that’s something that we built with the show is this kind of brotherhood that you feel when you’re a part of a team.”
DiPietro aspires to continue hosting morning drive in New York City and helping ESPN New York thrive through alterations in discovery and modes of consumption. As a professional athlete, he did not want to see the rubicund hue of the goal light perched on the boards, but he has a different sentiment towards the studio on-air light. Concurrent with expeditious and sustainable growth in hockey, DiPietro aims to instantiate the same for the morning radio program with the omnipresent fear of failure. The four hours will continue to be filled with informative sports talk, banter and entertainment to create content worth revisiting when the sun rises again.
“Be entertaining, do the work – you can’t just show up, especially here,” DiPietro said. “When you’re trying to do a radio show or TV in New York, people will sniff you out in a second if you don’t know what you’re talking about, so make sure that you’re watching everything, you’re prepared and then be yourself. Don’t be fake.”
Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, email Derek@BarrettMedia.com or find him on X @derekfutterman.
