ESPN New York will cease to exist on 98.7 FM at the end of August 2024 when Good Karma Brands will end its local marketing agreement by declining to renew the $12.5 million lease from Emmis Communications. The “Worldwide Leader” began leasing the frequency in April 2012 in a deal that began at $8.5 million annually with 3.5% interest each year as well. Shortly thereafter, CBS Radio purchased 101.9 FM and placed its signature sports station, WFAN, on the frequency. Good Karma Brands assumed operations of ESPN New York when it purchased local radio assets in a transaction in the fourth quarter of 2021, including complete ownership over 1050 AM.
Throughout the years where ESPN New York and WFAN opposed each other head-to-head on the FM dial, host Craig Carton was often at the center of the conversation when it came to ratings battles. Carton recently departed the station almost three years after returning from serving a prison sentence for wire and securities fraud, and is now hosting a daily morning television show on FOX Sports 1 with David Jacoby.
While Carton records his public service program, Hello, My Name Is Craig weekly from the studios, he is no longer on the WFAN airwaves in weekdays. Nonetheless, he still made his feelings known regarding ESPN New York choosing to abdicate FM radio just before the start of football season next fall.
“98.7 had a shot, but 20 years with one afternoon show that never got consistent ratings or gave reliably compelling content; not being local from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.; changing hosts too often, and when there was blood in the water, they made zero commitment to be local all day and didn’t take advantage,” Carton posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Replies to the post largely agreed with Carton’s assessment, and many users expressed that they missed him on the radio.
During his final show on WFAN over the summer, Carton made note of the fact that he and Roberts defeated The Michael Kay Show in the traditional Nielsen Media Research ratings book for all but one month during their time on the air. Carton’s final ratings book, which was released shortly thereafter, ended in a triumph by finishing second overall in the New York City marketplace.
“I’m very proud to say, because the audience bought into the notion of me being back and you and I working together, that we’ve not only beaten them; we have put them out of business essentially,” Carton said of ESPN New York in June 2023. “We have dominated Michael Kay and Don La Greca and that little no good weasel that works with them, and I’m very proud of that. When I look back at my career, that’s one of the great accomplishments, egotistically, of my career that I had a job to do and we did that job together.”
Before Carton officially left the airwaves, Michael Kay expressed to Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman of the New York Post on their podcast that he would have rather continued to compete against him and lose in the book if necessary. He articulated that he is an extremely competitive person and would have liked to help his show rise to the top, along with the fact that he was annoyed by the way Carton depicted their show.
Kay mentioned that Carton was given a platform to share his story on The Michael Kay Show before being convicted in 2017 and has since come off as an antagonist. Even so, he had no interest in engaging in a radio war with him and instead focused on his own program with Don La Greca and Peter Rosenberg.
“The discourse was so nasty and he was so personal and stuff like that,” Kay said of Carton. “I never did anything to him; that’s not the way I do my show. I don’t believe in doing it that way – maybe I’ve outgrown the world.”
