WFAN’s signature afternoon duo of Craig Carton and Evan Roberts will be revamped in the coming weeks. Carton, who returned to WFAN after serving time in prison for wire and securities fraud, will be leaving the radio station to join FOX Sports’ FS1 channel full time as the host of The Carton Show. The news was first reported by Andrew Marchand of the New York Post. Carton announced on Thursday afternoon that his final show at the station will be on Friday, June 30, and that the decision was made for personal reasons.
“While I’m looking forward to the future, there’s an aspect of this that I’m melancholy about,” Carton said. “When I first left WFAN, it was under much different circumstances. I was in trouble and I was going to go away. This time it’s on my own volition, but it doesn’t make it any easier. WFAN has meant the world to me. [If] WFAN didn’t give me the opportunity to come back and restart a career, no joke, I’m unemployable.”
The disparate salary difference between WFAN and FOX Sports was reportedly too great to turn down – and Carton will now be making seven figures with FS1. Barrett Sports Media has confirmed the news, and learned that the future of the afternoon show will be announced in the coming days. It suggests a decision may already be in place about the next iteration of the drive time slot, although no pairing has been announced nor confirmed. “Everything’s on the table,” Roberts said on the air.
The primary motivation for Carton’s decision to leave the station, he explained, was being able to have more time to devote to his family. From the moment he was arrested, he became estranged from his wife and was not allowed to regularly see his children. Since he was released from prison and has taken steps to right the wrongs he committed towards his family, friends and the audience, Carton is back home with his family and is able to spend time with his children. Now, he is doubling down on that commitment by walking away from his daily hosting commitments on WFAN and focusing on one job full time, something he has referred to as a challenge he feels he is up for taking on.
“I wish I could go back in time and figure out why I made the bad decisions I made,” Carton said. “I didn’t treat them like the amazing kids that they are, and I wasn’t around enough – and even when I was around, I wasn’t there because I was focused on gambling and money and things like that. So I have this great opportunity now that’s been provided to me to be a better dad; to be a better husband; to be a better brother; to be a better son; to be a better nephew; to be a better friend, and I don’t think I can do that doing both jobs.”
Carton’s contract with WFAN had expired in November 2022, but he has been working under the agreement that he would eventually have to choose between radio and television. There is a chance Carton’s television show could be simulcast on FOX Sports radio, although that still remains to be seen. The restructured contract with FS1, according to Marchand, will allow him to pay the $5 million he owes in restitution for the crimes he committed.
“I’ve been here without a contract for the better part of the last nine months,” Carton revealed. “I come to work every day because he and I shook hands, and that handshake was when we figured things out; when I figure out how I’m going to work both jobs – WFAN and FOX Sports – one that he and I would then sit down and discuss contractual parameters, but I’ve been here without a contract since November 1 of last year.”
Roberts is expected to remain on the afternoon program as the station searches for a new full-time partner of the show. Names such as actor Jerry Ferrara, who has filled in for Carton before, along with midday host Tiki Barber are up for consideration. Mike Francesa will not be making a comeback to the station as he continues to host his eponymous BetRivers podcast. Throughout his protracted message to listeners, which the show would have preferred not to have to make on sudden notice when they learned of the New York Post story coming out, he thanked Roberts for accommodating him in difficult circumstances.
“You were not our first choice as you know,” Carton told Roberts, “but looking back on it, I don’t think it would have worked with anybody else. So on a personal level, while I know I’m kind of taking your career and risking it to a point where you’re going to have to rebuild a new show with whomever they decide to partner you with, here’s what I know. You will be successful. This show was not successful just because I’m 50% of it; it’s successful because you’re 50% of it.”
Carton will remain with the station to host his Saturday program, titled Hello, My Name is Craig, about the risks of sports gambling and addiction. He will record the podcast from the WFAN studios in New York, N.Y. on Thursdays, presumably after his FS1 morning show concludes. Through the podcast and continuing to remain present, he hopes to maintain “an active, amazing relationship with the radio station,” its management, personnel and listeners.
Carton’s ratings for the first year of his television show struggled compared to other programming, but recently experienced its best month last March with an average of 33,000 viewers. FS1 had been aiming to secure exclusive media rights for Carton, but his steadfastness towards WFAN and the radio medium made the decision especially difficult. In the end, WFAN will begin the fall ratings book with a new afternoon duo after Carton helped restore its afternoon time slot following the departure of Mike Francesa.
“I’m a radio guy at heart – always have been; always will be,” Carton said. “Yet the challenge of trying to do a successful national morning show on FOX Sports 1 is something that appeals to me. It’s a challenge that I want to conquer, and at this stage of my career, I feel like I’m up for that challenge.”
Yet the possibility of Carton leaving had been on the table for several months, and the afternoon host was open about the difficulty of continuing to simultaneously work two media jobs. Carton had been hosting his FS1 show at 7 a.m. EST each morning in New York City, requiring he wake up at 2:30 a.m., and then was working afternoon drive at WFAN until 6:30 p.m. He has been returning home afterwards for a 20-minute dinner with his children, and then is going to bed by 8:30 p.m. to receive six hours of sleep so he can rinse and repeat the process on each weekday.
“I do what I can to repay the people I owe money to and to try to support my family,” Carton explained. “My job working is what I’m supposed to be doing to try to start righting all the wrongs in my life.”
Being able to ease his strenuous schedule was a factor involved in the decision, and Audacy New York market president Chris Oliviero reportedly approved Carton’s choice to leave the station. Oliviero, who Carton referred to as a “saint,” visited him while he was in federal prison and made him a solemn and sincere promise.
“He told me if I ever got my life back in order, and figured out why I made the bad decisions I made, he would be there for me,” Carton said. “[There are] no guarantees of a job, but that he would never stop being my friend. Having a guy like that as your friend, I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Not only is he my friend, but he paved the way for me to come back to WFAN.”
Rival ESPN New York 98.7 host Michael Kay recently inked a contract extension with the station that will continue The Michael Kay Show for the next several years, and Carton’s departure could prove to be an opportunity for the station to make up ground it had lost in the ratings. In the winter book, Carton & Roberts ranked third in the New York market with a 7.7 share, while The Michael Kay Show ranked 15th at a 2.9 share, although the two shows do not compete directly with each other throughout the entire afternoon.
“This was never a seesaw battle,” Carton said referring to ratings. “It burns me to my core that anybody can refer to the ratings battle between us and ESPN as seesaw…. Our first full ratings period, to be fair to both sides, was January of 2021. You’ve got four books in ’21 ratings books; you’ve got four ratings periods in ’22; and now we’re about to finish our second ratings period in ’23…. We have won nine of the 10.
“It’s comical to me that anyone could think of them as competition; as good; or anyone I care much about when they’re in 18th place and they have lost nine out of 10 ratings periods. If I do the math on that, that would be that we have won 25 of 28 months. If I do the math further on that, we have won 2,473 weeks and they’ve won two; something like that. I do take great pride in that.”
WFAN’s parent company, Audacy, was nearly delisted from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) since its average closing price finished below $1 over a consecutive-day trading period. The dwindling advertising market, accruing debt and changes in consumption habits have made declaring bankruptcy a legitimate possibility for the company, although chief executive officer David Field believes the transitory peril will pay off in the long run. Shareholders of the company approved a reverse stock split to prevent the delisting, however, at a recent meeting.
Carton does not currently have a regular co-host on his FS1 program despite the network trying to hire Damien Woody away from ESPN. Throughout his time on the show, Tim Hardaway, Cody Decker and Brandon Jennings have served as panelists. It remains unknown if FS1 is searching for someone to join Carton regularly on the air to improve the show’s ratings, or if the content of the program will become more streamlined. Carton was reportedly close to joining MLB Network before the deal was closed with FS1.
“I want people to know more than anything else how special WFAN is to me; the listeners are to me; and all the people in this building, and how I recognize how fortunate and lucky I am,” Carton said. “That I have WFAN in my life [and] WFAN allowed me to change my life for the better, and the fact that they’ve been with me in lockstep for the last nine months trying to figure this out…. I’ll never again make the bad decisions that I made a number of years ago because I don’t get a third chance nor do I deserve one.”
