RADIO WARS: 97.5 the Fanatic to Announce New Afternoon Show (UPDATED)

(see the update below the story)

At 4 p.m. today, 97.5 the Fanatic will announce the new afternoon show that will fill Mike Missanelli’s 2 to 6 p.m. time slot.

We’re told that the final grouping is pretty much what we reported back in June, with Tyrone Johnson, Hunter Brody, and Ricky Bottalico joined by Jen Scordo. The show is slated to begin on August 1st.

As you know, the Mikey Miss and Beasley relationship abruptly ended on a random Tuesday back in May. Tyrone and Jen have continued in their roles during this interim period, which has seen Tom Alvord circle into the producer chair. This has temporarily been branded as “The Afternoon Show,” so we’ll see how that changes when 97.5 makes this announcement.

A few notes on the show:

1. Ricky Bo, we’re told, is supposed to host remotely. NBC Sports Philadelphia apparently was building a studio for this purpose, which I guess would enable him to do the gig and then remain in-house for his Phillies duties. If there’s a conflict, like an early Phillies game or something like that, I’d think that’s first priority for him, but we’ll have to see how that shakes out. I’m sure that was one of the hold ups here, just getting that straightened out.
2. Jen might be producing the show and running the board, but I’ll double check. She did updates and functioned as a third chair with Mike and Tyrone.
3. Hunter and Tyrone have worked together before on weekends. Brodes came up through the Mike Gill ranks down in South Jersey and at some point Gill may need to start collecting royalties on talent dispersal up the pipeline.
4. Brodes has a YouTube channel with 20,000 subscribers. I’m sure they had to factor this into contract negotiations and we’ll see if it remains active once the new gig begins.
5. Ricky has done some work with 97.5 in the past, mostly popping in to guest on John Kincade’s morning show, so there’s pre-existing Fanatic/Bo familiarity here.
6. The television simulcast will continue on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Since Ricky Bo works for both we’re gonna call this SYNERGY. That’s one of my favorite corporate meeting words, right up there with “underpin.”

This is an interesting grouping for the afternoon show. You’ve got an internal promotion with Tyrone, you’ve got Brodes climbing the ranks and lapping more-tenured young talent over there, Jen only recently came over to replace Natalie Egenolf, and then Ricky Bo makes a TV-to-radio jump right into the all-important P.M. drive shift.

The biggest question for me is wondering who becomes the “main voice,” so to speak, like which person is the show lead? As an example, you’ll have Andrew Salciunas and the morning crew work off Gargano and Kincade, respectively, but between Tyrone/Hunter/Ricky who is 1, 2, and 3? Is there a 1a, 1b, and 1c? How will that work? Do you end up with a Bruno and Innes type of thing where it’s two lead talents trying to figure it out? Or do we settle into the comfortable scenario of an Angelo Cataldi with three other people chiming in at some point? That’s what interests me the most, the distribution of roles, if you wanna call it that. Ratings weren’t fantastic when Mike left, but the TV simulcast and growth of digital is really helpful here and something to pay attention to.

They are announcing this thing shortly. I’ll listen and update with any details I missed.

UPDATE –

Tyrone is doing the announcement right now. He says Jen will be the new producer of the program, and the show is called The Best Show Ever? He went on to explain that the name is a homage of sorts to the fans, because Philly has the best fans. That’s me paraphrasing right there. There’s a writeup on the Fanatic website if you want to read their introduction to the show.

Ricky Bo and Brodes. Jen staying on as producer. pic.twitter.com/p1gaJfwiAv

— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) July 13, 2022

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