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Mike Francesa’s WFAN return a pathetic, short-sighted move by station brass
There’s really only one logical takeaway from WFAN suits’ decision to bring Mike (Sports Pope) Francesa back to afternoon drive: They are unwilling to go through short-term pain to achieve long-term gain.
Think about it, they are bringing back a guy who for two years said he wanted to retire from their station, a 64-year-old Gasbag who for the last few years complained, bitched and moaned about his situation at WFAN. Now they will market him as some kind of conquering hero returning to his pulpit to save the afternoon.
There’s only one word to describe it: Pathetic.
By the way, will Francesa be offering refunds to those who attended his retirement events?
Anyway, the Entercom (it owns FAN) suits who hired Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott — Mark Chernoff and Chris Olivero — do not have the courage of their conviction to even give CMB a year to achieve the kind of chemistry needed to move the needle. The trio didn’t even get a football season.
Francesa will return to WFAN afternoons, hitting the airwaves from 3-7 p.m. That would slash “CMB” time, leaving them to split the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. slot with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts.
Clearly, the weasels panicked, something professional management is not supposed to do. So, instead of thinking long-term, they take the easy way out and bring back the Pope, believing he can quickly return WFAN to No. 1 in afternoon drive. He better. For under these circumstances, where he backstabbed CMB to get a job he said he had no use for, nothing short of a No. 1 finish is miserable failure.
And don’t try to spin this as FAN just moving CMB to another time slot. WFAN is burying CMB. Since they have two-year deals, FAN suits don’t want to pay them for nothing. So they will split the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. slot with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts. With CMB’s combined $1.5 million salary, along with Joe and Evan’s salary, the budget for that time period has been busted. After two years, someone/ones will be out the door. So now you have five mouths worried about their future.
After seeing how Chernoff and Olivero screwed CMB, why would any other Talkie trust them.
Thanks, Mike.
It’s not bad enough you lied about your future, now you are going to cost multiple people their jobs. You will be great for morale at the station. More reason for those who already can’t stand Francesa to despise him even more. For Francesa, this is business as usual. He planted the seeds for his return on MLB Network when he callously laughed, with Chris (Mad Dog) Russo, while speculating who would be the next in line to be tossed out of WFAN.
After that session, both Russo and Francesa, according to two FAN sources, received text messages from Carlin. The message for both was the same. Carlin told each Gasbag to: “Suck my d--k.”
Was Carlin’s missive the insipiration for Francesa creating a conspiracy theory designed to make him look like the victim? He says a smear “campaign” was launched to prevent him from returning to WFAN. That, Francesa claims, was his motivation for his decision to pursue a WFAN return.
“This is for those who started this campaign in recent days,” Francesa told Newsday. “I didn’t decide to go back to WFAN until I was told I better not go back. For those behind it, that was the moment I decided to return.” Was Francesa afraid Carlin would force him to carry out his text message?
Wonder who really started this alleged “campaign?” John Minko? Jerry Recko? The Man in The Moon?
No, history tells us this is just another Francesa concoction, a lie. Now, when he hits the airwaves on his “new” show, he will inform the unwashed masses that it was only because someone threatened him that he decided to come back. He will say he was doing just fine with his life until someone poked the bear, er, Pope. This is hogwash.
With the exception of trying to create a Francesa App, he had no gigs lined up. He overestimated his value in the marketplace. Beyond that, he missed being able to bloviate on the radio more than he ever thought he would. So, with no concern for others, he plotted his return and accepted a huge paycut to reclaim his old gig.
There will be plenty of spin coming out in the next few days. The saddest of all will be about CMB. When they were signed for the afternoon gig, Chernoff, Olivero and other FAN suits highlighted what a diverse crew they hired, which included a woman and an African American.
“I think it’s important to reflect the listeners we have out there,” Chernoff said at the time. “… To have more of a reflection of what’s out there — male, female, person of color.”
Chernoff proves he was just paying lip service to diversity. Now, he is making that “male,” “female” and “person of color” walk the plank into mid-day and eventually out the door. Chernoff, or any other Entercom suit who patted themselves on the back for their awareness of diversity now qualify as fakes, phoneys and frauds.
Perhaps Francesa can enlighten us all on the diversity issue during his opening monologue.
Then again, he probably will be too busy selling tickets to his Welcome Home Dinner.
Mike Francesa’s WFAN return a pathetic, short-sighted move by station brass
There’s really only one logical takeaway from WFAN suits’ decision to bring Mike (Sports Pope) Francesa back to afternoon drive: They are unwilling to go through short-term pain to achieve long-term gain.
Think about it, they are bringing back a guy who for two years said he wanted to retire from their station, a 64-year-old Gasbag who for the last few years complained, bitched and moaned about his situation at WFAN. Now they will market him as some kind of conquering hero returning to his pulpit to save the afternoon.
There’s only one word to describe it: Pathetic.
By the way, will Francesa be offering refunds to those who attended his retirement events?
Anyway, the Entercom (it owns FAN) suits who hired Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott — Mark Chernoff and Chris Olivero — do not have the courage of their conviction to even give CMB a year to achieve the kind of chemistry needed to move the needle. The trio didn’t even get a football season.
Francesa will return to WFAN afternoons, hitting the airwaves from 3-7 p.m. That would slash “CMB” time, leaving them to split the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. slot with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts.
Clearly, the weasels panicked, something professional management is not supposed to do. So, instead of thinking long-term, they take the easy way out and bring back the Pope, believing he can quickly return WFAN to No. 1 in afternoon drive. He better. For under these circumstances, where he backstabbed CMB to get a job he said he had no use for, nothing short of a No. 1 finish is miserable failure.
And don’t try to spin this as FAN just moving CMB to another time slot. WFAN is burying CMB. Since they have two-year deals, FAN suits don’t want to pay them for nothing. So they will split the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. slot with Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts. With CMB’s combined $1.5 million salary, along with Joe and Evan’s salary, the budget for that time period has been busted. After two years, someone/ones will be out the door. So now you have five mouths worried about their future.
After seeing how Chernoff and Olivero screwed CMB, why would any other Talkie trust them.
Thanks, Mike.
It’s not bad enough you lied about your future, now you are going to cost multiple people their jobs. You will be great for morale at the station. More reason for those who already can’t stand Francesa to despise him even more. For Francesa, this is business as usual. He planted the seeds for his return on MLB Network when he callously laughed, with Chris (Mad Dog) Russo, while speculating who would be the next in line to be tossed out of WFAN.
After that session, both Russo and Francesa, according to two FAN sources, received text messages from Carlin. The message for both was the same. Carlin told each Gasbag to: “Suck my d--k.”
Was Carlin’s missive the insipiration for Francesa creating a conspiracy theory designed to make him look like the victim? He says a smear “campaign” was launched to prevent him from returning to WFAN. That, Francesa claims, was his motivation for his decision to pursue a WFAN return.
“This is for those who started this campaign in recent days,” Francesa told Newsday. “I didn’t decide to go back to WFAN until I was told I better not go back. For those behind it, that was the moment I decided to return.” Was Francesa afraid Carlin would force him to carry out his text message?
Wonder who really started this alleged “campaign?” John Minko? Jerry Recko? The Man in The Moon?
No, history tells us this is just another Francesa concoction, a lie. Now, when he hits the airwaves on his “new” show, he will inform the unwashed masses that it was only because someone threatened him that he decided to come back. He will say he was doing just fine with his life until someone poked the bear, er, Pope. This is hogwash.
With the exception of trying to create a Francesa App, he had no gigs lined up. He overestimated his value in the marketplace. Beyond that, he missed being able to bloviate on the radio more than he ever thought he would. So, with no concern for others, he plotted his return and accepted a huge paycut to reclaim his old gig.
There will be plenty of spin coming out in the next few days. The saddest of all will be about CMB. When they were signed for the afternoon gig, Chernoff, Olivero and other FAN suits highlighted what a diverse crew they hired, which included a woman and an African American.
“I think it’s important to reflect the listeners we have out there,” Chernoff said at the time. “… To have more of a reflection of what’s out there — male, female, person of color.”
Chernoff proves he was just paying lip service to diversity. Now, he is making that “male,” “female” and “person of color” walk the plank into mid-day and eventually out the door. Chernoff, or any other Entercom suit who patted themselves on the back for their awareness of diversity now qualify as fakes, phoneys and frauds.
Perhaps Francesa can enlighten us all on the diversity issue during his opening monologue.
Then again, he probably will be too busy selling tickets to his Welcome Home Dinner.
Pathetic.
Hard for me to disagree with the bulk of this article - Francesa is good on the radio but a pompous ass as a human being.
Francesa gets back on the air.
CMB still gets paid for less hours of work (2 year contract).
The Fan gets Francesa back in the prime spot at a discounted rate.
Everyone wins....but I wont be tuning in to that moron.
It's not often that I agree with anything printed in the opinion pages of the Daily News, but this is spot on. Francesa is a pathetic condescending loser who lies and has no idea what he is talking about most of the time. I barely listened to him in the afternoon after he went solo, and I certainly won't now. CMB aren't perfect, in fact they are pretty bad, but they are still better than listening to that windbag drone on for hours.
The bottom line here is that like it or not, the afternoon trio have thus far failed in terms of the ratings and they are trying to rescue the network. According to what I read, Chernoff was blind sighted by Francesca and his agent, who went over his head to the suits at Entercom. The ratings book is what counts and Michael Kay was improving and FAN's sinking ratings put them into a tail spin and they knew if they were to save ad dollars, the trio was not cutting it.
I am certain that Phil Muchnick is sharpening his teeth on this one. I was a fan back in the day of M & MD, but I out them in my rear view mirror years ago. I will try to listen in the first day to see what kind of crap he throws to see what will stick, but I believe that being an ego maniac, retirement and hanging with Mrs. Met was not all he was hoping for.
I've never cared for Francesa and only listened to him when there was a game I didn't care about on ESPN radio. But after listening to Bart Scott ramble on aimlessly I think its a good thing Francesa is back. Bart Scott has no knowledge of any sport other than football. Why they put him in that show is beyond me. He should be a sideline analyst on espn.
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