Radio hosts adjusting on the fly
On nearly every weekday morning since 1989, sportstalk radio host Angelo Cataldi has settled into a swivel chair, dragged a pair of earphones over his head, and turned to face the most taunting, haunting apparatus in his profession. That microphone.
It isn’t going anywhere. It never does. When it is hot, it carries one relentless mandate: Talk.
For the successful ones, and Cataldi is a legend at 94.1-FM WIP, the challenge is met seamlessly. Surely, since last he was on air, there will have been a game won, an opportunity lost, a postgame comment mangled, a general manager overwhelmed, a coach befuddled, a trade rumor bubbling or a losing streak growing lengthy enough to invite hours of entertaining complaint.
It’s sports, after all. It never runs out. Until … a worldwide pandemic means there are no spectator sports, not at the pro level, the college level, the high school level, none at all.
Then what?
“I understand we are far from the biggest priority in people’s lives right now,” Cataldi said. “Even sports fans. Because there is no sports right now.”
So how does a host entertain for four hours when there isn’t a single blown referee’s call to over-critique?
“What I’ve tried to do, and what Brookie (sportstalk broadcasting pioneer
Tom Brookshier) taught me 30 years ago, is to just talk about whatever the people are talking about,” Cataldi said. “If it’s not sports, range outside your limits a little bit to try to incorporate that into what you do.”
Cataldi, for one, has never resisted expanding the conversation, even if it might mean inventing a binge-eating contest of a certain popularity. Still, sports is the magnet that brings listeners to WIP, and when it is gone, the hosts, like the athletes and coaches they often badger, are expected to adapt on the fly.
“I’ll tell you an interesting thing, and I don’t think I am giving away any trade secrets,” said Glen Macnow, long a popular WIP host. “The station’s ratings have gone up in the past week, and I don’t think it has anything to do with sports. I think that the people on the station who are creative, and I think WIP is full of creative people, know that talk radio, and WIP specifically, is the town meeting place. And when something like this happens, people want to know what their neighbors think, what their friends think. And I include us as their friends. They want to know how we are all doing.
“The closest thing for me was 9/11. And I will tell that was horrible for me and everybody else. But I was privileged to be on the air and share with people in this community how they were doing. It was helpful to me. And I think that kind of form was helpful to everybody. So I believe that during a time like this, what we do is something people really want to be a part of and want to share.”
Since there are other news-oriented talk-radio options for callers to discuss the more weighty topics of the day, Macnow understands sports will remain a vital bonding agent at WIP. For that, with co-host Ray Didinger, Macnow would interview Phillies broadcaster Scott Franzke and Eagles play-by-play legend Merrill
Reese not about pitching or defensive-line rotations, but about how they had become so successful in their careers. Such programming should prove popular, at least for a while. But, if there is not an underperforming superstar to heckle for being overcompensated, there eventually could be diminishing motivation to make a phone call to a sports-talk host.
Initially, at least, with so many people in lock-down to allow the coronavirus to clear, the volume of calls to WIP has risen, not decreased.
“I was really surprised at that,” said Rhea Hughes, a vital component to Cataldi’s morning show as a sports reporter, commentator and arranger of on-air guests. “Angelo starts a topic and, boom, there goes the lines being filled.”
With the NFL last week continuing to do offseason business and the Eagles in particular making multiple moves of significance, that helped.
“The NFL really gave us something to talk about,” Hughes said. “It was great. Because for me, that’s normal. It was like, ‘OK, this is what we do every day.’ And it was fun to yell and scream about stuff that’s not life and death. So you could act like an idiot for a little bit.
“We weren’t sure how the callers were going to react. But we had callers saying, ‘I just needed to argue about whether the Eagles should have cut Malcolm Jenkins, or what they are doing to get Carson Wentz healthy.’ So that, to me, it was, ‘OK, we’re helping them as much as they’re helping us.’”
The coronavirus quarantine continues, with no firm indication when it will end. Until then, there will be sports-talk radio, even if the emphasis occasionally must be more on talk than it is on sports. Some hosts will choose to work in studio. Others will ride it out from the high-level equipment in their homes.
“I’m in Havertown,” Macnow said, laughing. “I’ll open up a window. Anybody can come by and watch.”
As always, that microphone will be hot.
To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery