The collapse and decline of regional sports networks has been at the forefront of many sports media discussions, and the president of Scripps Sports believes the situation could ultimately turn into a positive one.
While speaking on “The Future of Sports on TV” panel at TVNewsCheck’s conference during the NAB Show in Las Vegas Sunday, Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor shared that, in his view, it’s obvious the regional sports network model is no longer sustainable.
“We’re at a moment in time where the model doesn’t work for teams and leagues anymore,” said Scripps Sports President Brian Lawlor. “That was built on cable and satellite reaching 80% or more of households and markets. Now with cord-cutting, sports are reaching less than 50% or 40% of households in a market. That’s a broken business model.”
Diamond Sports Group — which operates the Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks — purposely missed a $140 million debt payment earlier this year that began bankruptcy proceedings for the company. It has failed to pay its scheduled rights fees to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, and Minnesota Twins.
Warner Bros. Discovery told the professional sports teams it holds the local television rights for that it would exit the regional sports network business and close down its AT&T SportsNet operations in Pittsburgh, Denver, and Houston later this year.
Additionally, NBCUniversal sold its 67% stake in NBC Sports Washington to Monumental Sports & Entertainment — the owner of the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, and Washington Mystics.
Lawlor continued by noting that the restrictive nature of regional sports networks was ultimately part of its downfall, and more broad distribution will be the key to a successor’s success.
“We have an opportunity to reset what reach looks like and within that an opportunity to reset the economics,” Lawlor said. “Those RSN deals were so restrictive, they were exclusive — only distributed on cable and satellite. There’s a top-of-the-funnel issue that broadcasters can solve. There’s an opportunity to build a direct-to-consumer business together that allows teams to own the data and own their fans. I don’t think it has to be ‘either/or’, it can be ‘Yes, and’.”
Right now, ESPN is focused on renewing its deal with the NBA. But when you are the Worldwide Leader in Sports, a year does not go by when you don’t have some decisions to make regarding your play-by-play rights. With the announcement last year that the College Football Playoff will eventually expand to 12 teams, there are people at the network already thinking about 2026.
That is the year the current contract between ESPN and the CFP ends. The network has indicated that it would be willing to be flexible in the next rights deal. Michael Nathanson of the research firm MoffetNathanson told Richard Deitsch that the network may have no choice.
“I think ESPN always likes having the year-end anything, and especially college football between the SEC Network and ACC Network and their deep ties,” he said. “The problem is it’s so expensive.”
Currently, ESPN pays around $470 million per year for the TV contract to air the College Football Playoff. That number is expected to go way up in the next negotiation, as the event would expand from three games to eleven.
“It’s such an expensive package that something would have to be thrown overboard. You can’t have everything. Clearly, they want the NBA because they’ll get NBA games for ESPN+. But do they get UFC (which is up in 2025) on top of that?”
Conferences like the Big Ten and the Pac-12, which do not have close ties with the network, have questioned whether ESPN’s relationship with the SEC benefits the conference when it comes time to select the four-team field for the College Football Playoff each year. That same argument has been used by other networks that want a piece of college football’s championship tournament as well.
No one from the College Football Playoff has said how many media partners the event may take on or when negotiations would begin.
St. Louis isn’t losing Jamie Rivers. The former Blues defenseman has a new contract with Hubbard Broadcasting, which will keep him on 101 ESPN for the next two years.
Rivers announced the news on Monday morning via Facebook. In the post, he thanked market manager John Kijowski as well as his colleagues Anthony Stalter, Brad Thompson, Andrew Marsh, and Mike Rider.
Five of Rivers’s 11 NHL seasons were played in St. Louis.
Since he starting his radio career, he has been moved around the board at 101 ESPN. He started out in middays with Anthony Stalter in 2019. Then he was partnered with Brandon Kiley.
In 2020, he moved to The Fast Lane in afternoon drive, where he rejoined Stalter and former Cardinals pitcher Brad Thompson, who announced earlier this year that he was stepping away from a full-time role on radio.
Last week, Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis sarcastically said that Fox News host Maria Bartiromo was “clearly neutral” about the 2020 presidential election. That quip did not sit well with conservative radio host and Fox News weekend host Mark Levin.
During The Mark Levin Show last week, the host questioned if the judge has “even heard about freedom of the press”, before suggesting that the judge recuse himself after Levin argued that the statement showed Davis’ lack of impartiality.
“Judge, why don’t you step aside? This is the big leagues. You may not be able to handle this. It’s gonna go all the way to the US Supreme Court. I haven’t talked to any of the Fox lawyers or the Fox executives or this one. I’m just saying as a lawyer: you’re small potatoes,” said Levin. “This is in your courtroom. You’re making a clown show of the thing. You’re obviously biased and partisan the way that you’re ruling.”
Levin later argued that NBC News also “raised questions about voting machines” before stating the he did “all this research today for my Sunday show on Fox, so you’ll wanna see it”.
The Life, Liberty & Levin host also promoted the new episode of the program on his Gettr account Sunday evening. However, the program was a re-air of a previous episode that originally aired in February.
Barrett News Media has requested comment from Fox News on why Levin’s scheduled episode was replaced with a re-run. As of this publication, the network has yet to comment.
Jen Psaki recently launched her Sunday show Inside with Jen Psakion MSNBC to much fanfare. However, Kara Swisher had some questions about the guest list from Psaki’s first month.
During her On with Kara Swisher podcast, the host questioned Psaki on why her guests — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) — were all Democrats.
“Do you think about putting more Republicans on?” asked Swisher.
When Psaki replied that she was “all for it”, Swisher continued by asking “Ok. What’s the problem?”
“There’s not a problem,” Psaki retorted. “I mean, people have to agree to come on the show, of course. But we have had conversations with a number of Republicans. I do wanna have Republicans on the show.”
Swisher appeared to dismissively suggest that the lack of Republican representation was unacceptable before asking Psaki which conservatives she would want to have on the program. The MSNBC host replied by saying that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX), and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as guests she would welcome to the show.
Some journalists have argued against welcoming certain lawmakers to their programs out of fear of giving them a platform to spread falsehoods. However, Psaki told Swisher that wasn’t a fear she held.
“I’m not really afraid of being a forum for propaganda, ’cause I’m gonna call that out,” Psaki confidently shared. “But I know there’s certain people who are not gonna come on the show and that’s fine, in all likelihood. But I do think a healthy part of not just democracy, but frankly — not to be old school about government — is having disagreements.”
NBC News Executive Vice President Janelle Rodriguez was the keynote speaker at the International Symposium on Online Journalism last week at the University of Texas, and shared her belief that the current state of journalism isn’t sustainable.
Rodriguez — who is in charge of NBC’s free NBC News Now platform — told attendees that a person’s wealth shouldn’t be the deciding factor in the journalism they consume.
“I don’t think we can live in a world where you have two tiers of information,” Rodriguez said. “People who can afford to pay, get access to quality information and journalism, and people who can’t afford to pay end up with junk information, misinformation, and low quality.”
With the advent of social media platforms, free streaming services, and on-demand video, Rodriguez said NBC News is cognizant of the fact that media consumption has changed.
“There are so many different ways to access news and information beyond the three networks, so it’s critical for us, and we’ve placed a high priority on making sure that we’re distributing that journalism everywhere that our audience is.
“We have a robust digital operation at NBCNews.com, but we had also launched six years ago, a digital-only program called Stay Tuned. It’s really focused on reaching younger viewers where they are, and that’s on Snapchat. From there, we launched our streaming network NBC News Now about four years ago, and we’ve seen just exponential growth.”
The defamation lawsuit brought forth by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News has been pushed back from its scheduled Monday start date to Tuesday, with no reason being given by Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis.
However, a report from The Wall Street Journal claims the pause in the case came as the network is looking at a last-ditch settlement with the election machine company.
Neither Fox News nor Dominion would comment on the delay in the trial after Davis said that both the trial and the jury selection would be delayed from its Monday start. The Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp., the company founded by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.
On Monday morning, a Fox News spokesperson claimed that Dominion has altered its claims of lost profits in the case from “not less than $600,000,000” to now stating it “will not be presenting its claim for lost profits damages to the jury” at all. In its initial filing, Dominion planned to seek the lost profit damages before reversing course late last week.
During a discussion about the trial on CNN This Morning, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig shared it is in Fox’s best interest to settle the case.
“Look at it from Fox’s point of view: they’re looking at the likelihood — if there’s a trial — of having all of their, or many of their most prominent anchors have to take the stand, testify, and get cross-examined,” Honig said. “You can understand why they would be hit by reality at the last moment and say ‘We need to avoid this.’”
Honig added that with Davis already ruling that Fox’s statements about Dominion were false “The only question at trial was going to be ‘Is there actual malice? Did Fox know, or were they reckless about the falsity?'”
On the night of March 4, 2011, ESPN 1000 Chicago personality Harry Teinowitz was behind the wheel on the way back from a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game. The team had defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2, the latest victory en route to a 97-point season and appearance in the NHL Western Conference Quarterfinals, and Teinowitz had thoroughly enjoyed himself at the United Center. He was used to drinking beer at sporting events, oftentimes being tasked by executives at the station to mingle over drinks with sponsors at various Chicago-based venues. Despite enjoying the beverage, he hardly drank too much, usually not finishing two beers on a given night.
Yet when the venues began serving alcoholic beverages, he was unable to control himself. The same went for remote broadcasts, which his show, Mac, Jurko and Harry, would conduct biweekly on Fridays across Chicagoland. Upon concluding the four-hour remote broadcast, he and his co-hosts would converse with the listeners over drinks. Once these events or games ended, Teinowitz was oblivious and took the wheel without waiting to sober up or even bothering to try to find an alternate means of transportation.
Two blocks away from his home on that March 2011 night, a police officer pulled Teinowitz over after a tow truck driver had seen him and called him in. While Teinowitz is grateful for that driver, he was irate towards him once he was told the only reason he was reported that night was so the driver could make money off of his vehicle once it was impounded. After police found that his blood alcohol content was .131, significantly above legal intoxication, Teinowitz’s driver’s license was immediately revoked. Moreover, he was charged with a count of DUI, along with a count of DUI greater than .08 and two counts of improper lane usage.
“If I don’t get pulled over that night, I’m long gone,” Teinowitz said. “…I should not have been driving and I blamed everybody but me. ‘The bartender served me so much. The second bartender served me so much. The valet shouldn’t have given me my car back.’ It was never my fault. I took full responsibility for what happened.”
Teinowitz was released from police custody and returned to the radio station where he was asked to draft a press release to be disseminated to major media outlets and others in the Chicago area. Furthermore, they requested he join an anonymous rehabilitation program and deliver a public statement about how he would work to correct his actions. Initially, Teinowitz was resistant to comply; however, his mindset quickly changed.
“At the time of my DUI, I said, ‘Guys, right now [and] the way I feel, I don’t think I was drinking that much,’” Teinowitz recalled. “Then I saw the tape of it and it was horrible. I said, ‘I don’t think I’m ever going to drink again.’ I went to rehab and I learned how I had to exist if I wanted to stick around not only at ESPN but with life itself.”
Aside from being an avid fan of Chicago’s various teams from his youth, attending sporting events afforded Teinowitz perspectives he may not have otherwise realized that he could then bring to the air. Despite ESPN 1000 Chicago being exclusively available on its AM frequency at the time, the show made a habit of being No. 1 in afternoon drive, beating out its direct competition from 670 The Score. Nicknamed “The Afternoon Saloon” because of the contentious debate that would take place between Teinowitz and co-host Dan McNeil. Joined by John Jurkovic, the trio cultivated a compelling and entertaining sound, and they tried to make light of Teinowitz’s DUI, which, of course, was a very serious matter. In fact, they recently reunited last month at ESPN 1000’s sold-out 25-year celebration event and reminisced on their time on the air.
When Teinowitz was young, he never foresaw himself working in sports talk radio solely because it did not exist. When The Score launched on AM 820 on Jan. 2, 1992, he took heed to what they were doing and thought he had the passion and skills to be a part of it. After all, he knew how to entertain audiences working as a standup comedian and was a skilled writer from his time as a theater major at the University of Kansas. He also performed baseball play-by-play and followed the local teams, presenting him as an on-air talent with deft versatility and someone who took pride in their work.
Teinowitz’s professional career in radio began at WLUP The Loop, a station initially broadcasting in the talk format featuring shows where he would update listeners on the latest news and information in sports. Jonathon Brandmeier and Steve Cochran, two established radio voices in the city of Chicago, hosted shows on the station on which Teinowitz would report on sports. Additionally, he was the co-host of a show with Spike Manton, eponymously titled Harry & Spike, which would later be reborn at ESPN 1000 Chicago in 1998.
Teinowitz and Manson’s show was broadcast on WLUP The Loop in the midst of the Chicago Bulls championship dynasty featuring superstars Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, a seminal time period in Chicago sports. While most shows attempted to interview a star player or head coach Phil Jackson, Teinowitz and Manton opted to book Jud Buechler for a recurring Saturday night appearance. Buechler was a reserve who averaged a meager nine-and-a-half minutes per game as a member of the Bulls on approximately 46% shooting, and he brought an unparalleled frame of reference listeners simply could not get anywhere else.
“Spike and I kind of committed to [having fun],” Teinowitz said. “If we’re having fun, the audience is having fun. [We thought], ‘Let’s do different stuff.’”
In order to be distinctive, Teinowitz and Manton adopted an assortment of different segments all around the premise of being able to make fun of oneself and craft a lighthearted atmosphere. When he began hosting with McNeil and Jurkovic on ESPN 1000 Chicago, that mindset remained important to him to carry over, so much so that they spent an hour just talking about the best place to get a burger in the city. While these types of idiosyncratic topics may seem extraneous to a sports talk radio show, including them in the program facilitated listenership and ratings success.
“The big bosses were in town one day, and we were talking about how cold it was in Chicago,” Teinowitz said. “I think we had a meteorologist on from ABC because they were in the same building as us. Eventually, they’re like, ‘Why are you guys talking about how cold it is?’ ‘Well, because in Chicago right now, that’s what everybody’s talking about.’”
Even before his time at ESPN 1000 Chicago, Teinowitz attended events for WLUP The Loop involving beer; however, a van would be sent for him just in case he drank too much. Part of the reason he attended these events was ostensibly because of his ability to connect with an audience, a skill he attained from his time in standup comedy. It provided him the confidence necessary to try new things and humor his audience, even if an idea he conjured proceeded to fail.
“There’s a lot of guys that know sports, and there’s a lot of guys that are funny, but there’s not a lot that are funny and know sports,” Teinowitz said. “To have that opportunity is really something…. I would encourage the powers that be at the different stations across America to give these people a chance.”
Alcoholism, however, remains no laughing matter. Its effects on health and wellbeing cannot be understated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 140,000 people die in the United States annually from excessive alcohol use. It is the country’s leading cause of preventable death.
Teinowitz attended a rehabilitation program following his DUI arrest and found that his sports talk radio experience eased his recovery in that he was able to genuinely make fun of himself. When he entered the facility though, he was unfamiliar with what the intent of the program was, and obtained an education in the dangers and risks associated with alcohol consumption. Two weeks into his enrollment, Teinowitz took a physical examination where doctors discovered complications with his liver, the organ responsible for removing toxins from the bloodstream.
“I went into rehab without knowing what rehab was,” he said. “This is how aware I was; I literally didn’t know rehab meant [to] stop drinking. I thought [it meant] now you were going to drink like a gentleman; like James Bond [saying], ‘May I have a vodka martini, shaken not stirred?’ Not, ‘Hey, give me four shots of Cuervo.’ I drank a lot and I had a real need for rehab.”
Tom, who was Teinowitz’s best friend of 43 years, had passed away after he caught pneumonia following a liver transplant, rendering his weakened immune system unable to stave off the significant complications related to the infection. He and his friend saw the same doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. and did not realize the severity of the condition they were facing. Once his friend passed away, Teinowitz protested seeing that doctor, as he figured the medical professionals were the cause of his death. When he mentioned this to his primary doctor, he said that the onus is on the individual to take responsibility for their situation and ensure they do everything possible to get better. It compelled Teinowitz to take his impediment seriously and lose 30 pounds, and he continues to actively try to lose more weight.
Teinowitz was eventually ousted from ESPN 1000, amidst a stretch of losses in the ratings to Dan Bernstein and Terry Boers on 670 The Score. Although he eventually landed at The Athletic as a writer and WGN Radio AM 720 where he filled in for various personalities and co-hosted both White Sox Weekly and The Beat, he remained aware of the changing landscape of sports media and how he nearly jeopardized his career.
His time rehabilitating, combined with struggling to find work, led him to revitalize his aspirations to become a playwright and begin compiling a play titled When Harry Met Rehab. The production, which originally started as a movie, evolved into a one-man play complete with maudlin retrospection on his journey and struggles with alcohol. The premise of the show was changed once his former co-host Manton read the script and offered to help Teinowitz complete it, pointing out how the concept revolved around the importance of collaboration and group therapy. Since the program he participated in was anonymous, the parts of the show pertaining to other members are fabricated to protect their identities and uphold standards.
“Spike is just a brilliant writer and we added stuff and took stuff out,” Harry Teinowitz says. “He said [that] my story was more of a manifesto than a play at some points. We wrote it, and the whole concept is it’s going to get real heavy at the end so it has to be real funny at the beginning.”
Teinowitz and Manton presented the script to Don Clark, Tom’s brother and an accomplished trial attorney who also produced plays. He offered to fund the scriptwriting and create a production that ran at the greenhouse Theater Center. Some of the show’s cast included Dan Butler, who famously played “Bulldog” on Frasier; Melissa Gilbert, who portrayed “Laura Ingalls” in Little House on the Prairie; and Elizabeth Laidlaw, who played “Vic Renna” on The Red Line. The tagline of the play is, “A comedy that takes sobriety seriously,” and has given Teinowitz a sense of closure on this chapter of his life while trying to honor and support those in recovery. The play opened to rave reviews in Chicago, aligning with Teinowitz’s success as a sports talk radio host, but had to close upon the spread of COVID-19. The show will be making an off-Broadway return next autumn in New York, and the show is in the midst of revamping its cast with hopes of reaching a large audience.
Clark offered Teinowitz the ability to depict himself in the production; however, he declined, stating that he had already done it and nearly died as a result. Nonetheless, he is excited for the play to make its return to the stage and hopes to receive more opportunities to re-immerse himself in the industry. It is a dream scenario – simultaneously working in sports media and the theater. It may not be possible though without a liver transplant, and fast.
Teinowitz is in desperate search for a donor and is urging people to email findharryaliver@gmail.com if someone or someone they may know could potentially be a fit.
“If you wanted to give me a liver right now, you would need to be blood-type A or O, and be 55 or younger,” Teinowitz said. “You could not be obese and there’s a day of testing – an MRI is a big thing – they want to check your history. When you have a living donor, you’re able to spend time testing specifically on what you want, and you can ask questions and interact; as opposed to when you get an organ from someone who had too much to drink coming home, and now we’ve got to get their liver inside of someone soon.”
HEALTH UPDATE: Hi everybody. No jokes in this tweet. I need a liver transplant… and I need one ASAP. If you or someone you know might be a match, please email findharryaliver@gmail.com. RETWEETS would be appreciated. Trying to get the word out. Thanks! https://t.co/R18mS9dEVopic.twitter.com/tmhdfttr3m
Since he shared his urgent need for a liver donor over Twitter, Teinowitz has received support from those across the industry, including WFAN morning host Gregg Giannotti. At the conclusion of Boomer and Gio this past Friday, Giannotti, who had never heard of Teinowitz before reading an article on Barrett Sports Media outlining the situation’s exigency, displayed disappointment in the lack of engagement with the message. The way he phrased it in particular caught the attention of Giannotti, who retweeted the plea for help on his Twitter account. Although the message has been viewed over 200,000 times, he is aware of the uphill climb he faces in order to receive this life-saving procedure and receive a chance to reemerge in sports media.
“I’m not going to get a liver on Twitter, but I’ve been trying – on that last tweet specifically – on just getting it [in] front of people’s eyes,” Teinowitz said. “I’ve had friends come up to me [who] said, ‘What do [I] do to be [your] donor?’”
Appearances be damned. Disney needs to make sure the NBA doesn’t get away.
The timing isn’t great. This is a company in the midst of massive layoffs. There very well could be a PR hit of some sort, but Disney is, at its core, a content company. The NBA is some of ESPN’s and ABC’s best sports content.
Math is rarely on the side of the bidders in these situations. John Skipper talked about this recently on a Meadowlark Media podcast. He attacked the accusations that he overpaid for NBA rights when he was running ESPN by saying that he didn’t do rights deals thinking about the current media landscape.
“Rights go up,” he said. “They look terrible in the beginning, by the end they look great. That’s why broadcasters should do long-term deals.”
Disney isn’t in a position to set the price this time around. The NBA is counting on tech giants Apple and Amazon to use their nearly unlimited resources to drive the bidding up. Both have been adamant about wanting to do business with the league and the league has been open about the fact that it expects to earn between $50 and 75 billion in these new deals.
Whatever percentage of that number Disney is going to be asked to pay to keep the NBA, it isn’t going to sit well with the people receiving pink slips from Mickey Mouse. Those people’s anger and frustration are going to be used against the company.
Ron DeSantis is trying to build a potential presidential campaign on going after Disney. Clay Travis used the “ESPN is too liberal” argument to springboard himself to a new level of relevance. There are going to be people ready to pounce on the idea that Disney cares more about the NBA than their own people if a deal gets done. That cannot sway the company. The NBA is too important to what they do. Besides, if it isn’t the NBA, those same people will say the same things about something else down the road.
Look, I’ve lost a job before due to cutbacks. It sucks. There is no way to sugarcoat it. I feel for all of the people that are going to get laid off, especially the “below the line” folks behind the scenes.
There is appearance, and then there’s reality. The NBA’s price tag will not change whether or not anyone at ESPN keeps their job. Those decisions have already been made.
Between ABC and ESPN, Disney will carry up to five games in a week during the NBA’s regular season. The playoffs are the centerpiece of both networks’ spring and summer schedules – ESPN during the week and ABC on the weekends.
On top of that, the NBA is at the center of so much that ESPN does. NBA Today is on every single weekday. Conversations about LeBron James, the Warriors, and trade demands dominate every show from SportsCenter to First Take. Some of the league’s biggest stars are at the center of movies on Disney+ and shows on ABC.
As stated earlier, Disney is a content company and the NBA gives Disney great content – a lot of it!
Doris Burke told Owen Pointdexter of Front Office Sports that she is taking nothing for granted. In the midst of layoffs, it doesn’t make sense to expect your company to invest billions or even millions in anything.
The NBA isn’t a building or a new piece of equipment. It’s inventory that creates inventory. That’s not an expense. It is an investment.
Disney’s cash flow issues have a lot to do with Covid-19. The pandemic disrupted movies, theme parks, and live sports. It’s like it was perfectly designed to hurt this particular company.
The other major contributor is the business model of Disney+. No one has really figured out how to be a profit machine in streaming video yet and Disney has set the difficulty to All-Madden with the amount of money it spends to create episodes of The Mandalorian and Loki.
Currently, Disney pays $1.4 billion per year for its NBA rights. With 99 games on its airwaves across ESPN and ABC during both the regular season and the playoffs, that works out to about $14 million per game – slightly less than it spends to make an episode of The Mandalorian and significantly less than it spends on an episode of any of its Marvel shows.
Now, admittedly that $14 million doesn’t include production costs associated with getting games on air nor does it factor in what broadcast talent is getting paid, but even with the additional amounts factored in, it is still a bargain compared to those prestige shows. Disney cannot sell commercial spots on its Disney+ properties. The NBA is an advertising machine! It is two different economic models, so they have to be evaluated in two very different ways.
There are no bad investments when it comes to media rights for the marquee brands in sports. We can debate what those brands are, but the NBA is part of a select group, along with the NFL, Big Ten and SEC, that would show up on everyone’s list. Shelling out the kind of money it takes to keep a property like that while you’re in the middle of massive layoffs may be a bad look, but that is temporary. People will forget about it quickly. Letting one of those properties get away is bad business that will have lasting effects.
One of the newest editions at WABC Radio is a host named Laura Curran, who served as Nassau County Executive from 2018-2021. The former Democratic lawmaker has joined WABC to host a weekend show called “Cut to The Chase.”
Last week, Curran joined “Sid and Friends in the Morning” to discuss partnership in mainstream media and what challenges arise from Democrats appearing on a network like Fox News.
“I get a lot of flak from Democrats for going on Fox News,” she said. “If MSNBC or CNN were calling me, of course, I would go.”
According to WABC, Curran is a former New York City reporter who blends her journalism expertise with politics, media, current events, and culture in her work on “Cut to the Chase.” The radio station said she fearlessly engages in thought-provoking conversations that delve into significant issues that impact our lives, regardless of our political leanings, and gets straight to the point.
“I’m having a ton of fun at WABC,” she said. “I also wanted to congratulate Sid because he’s doing so well at all of this, and if people think doing radio is easy, it is not; you (Sid) make it look easy.”
