They have spent every weekday morning together for eleven years on Lite 100.5 WRCH/Hartford’s “The Mike & Mary Show.” You’d think the Connecticut co-hosts would need some space during their downtime, but the “work husband and wife” live four houses away from each other in Rocky Hill, near Hartford. “I asked Mike if it would be weird,” says Mary (who’s a lifelong Rocky Hiller). It’s not. The hosts and their families are friends.
The two treat listeners like family. The devoted “M & M’ers” tune in from 5:30 to 10:00 am to “wake up and be awesome.” The fans respond to the pair’s pleasant, upbeat yet low-key vibe, which fits the Audacy show’s tagline, “the place to relax and unwind.”
Opposite of Morning Zoo
“The Mike & Mary Show” is the polar opposite of a “morning zoo:”
“We’re always positive, nothing salacious, nothing to embarrass mom in her minivan with the kids,” Mike explains. “That was our former program director Allan Camp‘s mission since 1989 at the station.”
Mary adds, “We’re not setting people up for second-date updates. We’re just real people talking about something funny that happened.”
Their play is safe, but they’re playful, baking dashboard cookies on a hot day and following the saga of a missing iguana. The music mix is upbeat Lite AC in line with Audacy’s “relax and unwind” motto. Mary delivers the news conversationally, so much so that people who say they don’t like the news probably don’t even know it’s a newscast. She steers clear of grisly details. Veteran traffic reporter Mark “The Shark” Christopher covers the roads.
Lite 100.5 WRCH is billed as “Southern New England’s Listen at Work Station,” and indeed, you hear the ubiquitous channel from the dentist’s chair to the gas station and everywhere in between. The show is hyper-local, featuring segments naming the best beaches and the best places to get sweet corn.
On Fridays, “The Weekend According to Mike” lets listeners know what’s worth checking out. The pair really resonated with the audience when they discussed iconic area businesses and institutions that are no longer.
“This is something that A.I. can’t do,” says Mary. “They try, but they can’t have the same depth as someone who remembers stores like Two Guys, The Elm Theater, The Joshua Tree, Weathervane.”
Yin and Yang
The two share personal and even embarrassing stories about their lives on the air with their radio family. Mary selects what to divulge based on the following criteria: Is it fun? Is it teachable? Does it inspire? Is it inclusive? Does it create community?
Mike says because he and Mary come from different decades, they cover the gamut on parenting stories. Mary and husband, Wes Nicoll, have two school age boys, Charlie (11), and Cooper (12). Mike and his wife, Carol (another lifelong resident of Rocky Hill), have two grown sons, Jake and Ben. The two radio personalities are a yin and yang, as they explain that Mike has a knack for things about which Mary has no clue and vice versa. This works well in their division of labor.
Mike Stacy – One and Done
WRCH’s morning show host, Mike Stacy, has never worked anywhere else in radio. He began as the Lite AC station’s promotions director in 1991.
“Within a year, I was on the morning show,” he explains. “Our program director Allan, who co-hosted the morning show, hated sports. He asked if I could do a thirty-second sportscast.” A sports lover’s dream come true. “I joined him and Kathy Wyler. I was always the last one picked for the sports team as a kid, so it was ironic.” What made it sweeter was that Mike had been told by another program director that he “had a good voice for impersonations but would never be on radio.”
Mike has also contributed to a variety of publications like Patch and Audacy.com and had his own DJ company for over two decades. He officiates weddings. He hosted the State of Connecticut’s Governor’s Ball, the Connecticut Public TV Auction, and more.
Mary Scanlon – Back Where It All Began
Co-host Mary Scanlon Nicoll is back where her radio career began. She worked at D’Angelo Grilled Sandwich Shop while studying to be an X-ray technician. She wasn’t thrilled with the math requirements in her coursework when her friend, Megan Doll, then a Metro Networks employee, suggested Mary try traffic reporting. She did, and she was good. Mary’s first radio job was on WRCH. Just as Program Director Allan Camp gave Mike a chance to cover sports, Allan elevated Mary’s trajectory by asking her to do liners after hearing her traffic reports.
She was on air at WRKI in Danbury, CT, at WKCI New Haven, and at Hartford’s WCCC-FM before joining Mike back at WRCH Lite 100.5 as morning show co-host in 2013. She’s also the station’s news director. When the show’s over, she’s got her hands full at home with her sons’ school sports and the Parent Advisory Council.
“My husband coaches and volunteers, so our calendar is full of different colored highlighters to keep everything straight.”
Mary first met husband Wes while working at the sandwich shop. The two re-connected later in life. They served Fenway Franks at their wedding but say they may have D’Angelo cater a big anniversary.
Community Focus On and Off Air
The two hosts are community-focused both on and off the air, and their families pitch in. One of a long list of charitable successes was “Mike’s Christmas Wish,” a 501-(C)3 foundation that helped thousands of Connecticut families in crisis at Christmas.
“We would sit with the kids before Christmas and help them write letters to Santa,” he recalls,” so we could see what their needs were. They got clothing, gift certificates to Big Y supermarket, plus a sit-down dinner with games and a huge sack of gifts. We brought in six figures every year,” says Mike, “and I’m still going through chiropractic work on my back which was damaged from carrying all of the packages.”
The party, at the 5,000 square foot play-space Nomad in South Windsor, was attended by 1,000 people.
The pandemic sidelined the event, leaving Mike and his family free to enjoy one another’s’ company after years of volunteering on the holiday. COVID, coupled with increased work responsibilities, caused Mike to close his DJ business, but he still officiates the occasional wedding.
The “Mike and Mary Smile Club” continues to spread the ‘wake up and be awesome” message as listeners get together for community service projects like blood drives and feeding the homeless.
Light the Month Pink
“Everyone in our audience has someone who has been touched by cancer,” especially breast cancer, says Mary. Mike worked for 25 years to raise funds to fight the disease with a comedy benefit at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford with heavy hitters like Lily Tomlin and Bob Newhart.
COVID and changes in entertainment and pricing for shows have prompted a pivot. This year, and specifically this month, their goal is to provide 500 mammography screenings for women in need during “Light the Month Pink.”
Throughout the month of October, “The Mike & Mary Show” will feature gripping interviews with women whose lives have been saved by the newest mammography technology, as well as information from physicians and scientists, to educate the audience and collect contributions for the cause.
Yard Goats and Whalers
Not all their off-the-mic activity is so serious. Mike and Mary team up with the Hartford Yard Goats baseball team for fun and frivolity, including Mary throwing out the first pitch at the AA game in Duncan Ballpark. The team and the show have a close relationship with the former Hartford Whalers Hockey team (still beloved in the area, though they left in 1997), and former Whaler greats go to the games.
“The Whalers would get off the ice and go to Chuck’s Steakhouse downtown and be at the bar and they never acted like superstars,” says Mary. “They were involved in charity. They’re a lot like us.”
The Mike & Mary Show gives away concert tickets and even trips to Curacao, where they broadcast their morning show live. Less swanky but still extremely fun was their pre-Eastern States Exposition VIP taste-test in August. Mike loves the ability to try out new food at “The Big E” fair.
“Great perks. Cream puffs, crab cakes, and etouffee from the New Orleans exhibit,” he says.
Social Media Changed the Landscape
His sidekick says “The Big E” food tasting for media muckety-mucks is “really a great example of how radio has changed. We have the ability to go and either broadcast live or share it on social media, and the audience gets to know you a lot better,” says Mary.
But social media’s a double-edged sword: “Sometimes the level of connection that you get is magnified in the best way possible, and sometimes you’re like, I don’t want to put on makeup today; I want to wear my pajamas to work.”
Mary recently asked the audience whether she should have “work done” on her face. “It’s no longer okay just to have a face for radio. The new radio people all want to be influencers,” she says, and their looks come first.
Christmas Tree Connection
Botox or facelifts may not be necessary, though, because the connection that Mike & Mary craft with their audience is more than skin-deep.
Mike recalls an on-air discussion two decades ago on WRCH where he compared real versus artificial Christmas trees. A listener named Maryellen called to weigh in. She sold real Christmas trees from the parking lot of her Cromwell, CT restaurant. Years later, her son was killed the day after his high school graduation, and Mike hosted a memorial golf tournament in honor of the young man just last week.
It’s more than the morning show music and information that keep the M & Mers tuned in. The audience revels in the relationship that Lite 100’s Mike & Mary have cultivated with the community both on air and off.
(It’s easy to get confused in Connecticut about Mike & Mary because there’s another “Mike & Mary Show” in the Hartford market on Star 92.7 FM, also in the morning. You can hear the Mike & Mary featured in the above article on weekday mornings from 5:30 to 10:00 a.m. on WRCH Lite 100.5 and on the Audacy app.
Amy Snider is a music features reporter for Barrett Media specializing on stories involving radio professionals working in Adult Contemporary/CHR/Top 40 formats. She brings over twenty-five years of media experience to the outlet. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Amy works for iHeartMedia and the Total Traffic and Weather Network as an on-air reporter, appearing on dozens of radio stations including 98 Rock, Mix 100.7, 95.3 WDAE, and Newsradio WFLA. She has also reported and anchored in the Tampa market at Fox 13, News Channel 8, WMNF Community Radio and WUSF-FM, the NPR affiliate.
Amy is a music fanatic. She hosted a drive-time rock and roll radio show for 20 years on WMNF-FM and is known as a tastemaker in the music and arts community. She booked, hosted, emceed and promoted a wildly popular weekly live music event in Tampa’s Ybor City featuring original music with performers from all over the world. Her free time is often spent at concerts and music festivals. To get in touch, find her on X @AmySnider4.
