Media Nuggets: PHLY Responds to Age Discrimination Complaint, JAKIB Sports Axes a Show, Action News Musings

I do a media notebook every few months that stems from conversation with about a dozen Crossing Broad sources. Sometimes there will be tidbits that aren’t enough for full posts, but they fit into this format instead. As we enter Q2 in 2024, here’s some of the stuff I was able to dig up, plus a few generic observations and musings that are worth sharing:

1) All City Network, the parent company of PHLY, was named in an age discrimination filing with the state. I’m told that a former seller, who sources say is in their sixties, was let go just a few months into their contract. CEO Brandon Spano told me that “we simply terminated an employee and it had nothing to do with age.”

The filing has yet to be resolved, and there is no public documentation because it is not technically a lawsuit. EEOC filings (in Pennsylvania’s case, the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity) are protected and don’t go into the court system the way a typical filing would. In the case of the All City/Beasley/Anthony Gargano situation, that was a civil suit filed in United States District Court, so all of the various updates in that case were available to the public.

It seems like PHLY’s biggest challenge has been getting things sorted behind the scenes, on the operations and sales side. They’ve terminated a handful of employees since launching last fall, and had to navigate the Gargano lawsuit as well.

2) Speaking of PHLY, a couple of new writers are in the fold, and they’re both Inquirer veterans who took buyouts. Ed Barkowitz had a couple of March bylines and Les Bowen confirmed on Twitter earlier this month that he’s going to be involved:

Didn’t realize this was public. Yeah, starting in a few weeks I’ll be a contributor to the @PHLY_Sports site. They must be incredibly desperate for content. https://t.co/kEmRDf7k4u

— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) April 3, 2024

Barkowitz left the Inquirer in the Summer of 2021 after three decades with the paper. Bowen spent 38 years at the Inquirer, and had brief stints with NJ.com and A2D radio after taking the buyout.

3) We did a story earlier this year titled JAKIB Media Contributors Say They’re Regularly Paid Months Late, or Not at All. Not sure if you noticed, but in the aftermath of that story, JAKIB axed the Sports Take show that Tone DeShields and Rob Ellis were hosting. It’s the midday/afternoon program that Derrick Gunn and Barrett Brooks were previously part of.

I expect litigation at some point, and a follow up Crossing Broad story. One thing I explored more after publishing the first article is court records, which show a handful of cases involving JAKIB founder Joe Krause, this one, for example, a South Jersey sports complex suing in 2017 for $16,000 in unpaid rental fees:

There’s a lot more stuff involving JAKIB and Joe Krause in the court system, filings here and there for a few thousand dollars at a time. We can expand on that if we do a follow up.

4) One of the items we put in our Five RADIO WARS Stories We’re Keeping an Eye on in 2024 was the status of Rhea Hughes in the post-Angelo Cataldi era. I’m told we can cross that one off the list, because Rhea got a new contract.

5) Two names I failed to mention in my Jamie Apody stories – Monica Malpass and Renee Washington. A number of people emailed me reminders that Malpass had a pretty abrupt departure about a year before the pandemic. Same abruptness with Washington, who announced in the Winter of 2023 that she was joining 6 ABC as a sports anchor and reporter. But Washington never appeared on television, vanished, and then reappeared with PHLY instead. I don’t think we ever got an answer for what happened in that situation, but Gabriella Galati was hired a few months later, in the Summer, and Apody disappeared in the Fall. Strange timeline right there for female sports talent. Throw the Jeff Skversky thing into the mix and it’s been a goofy couple of years in the Action News sports department.

6) The most read stories on Crossing Broad for 2024 are Jamie Apody update #3 and Jamie Apody update #4. It’s fascinating. She obviously has a ton of loyal supporters and anything related to Action News continues to drive interest in the Delaware Valley. I’ve received more emails on this topic than anything else since joining CB in 2017.

7) You may have seen this last week, but Jon Marks linked up with Parx. He’s doing a live show on Wednesdays with Maniac Malloy and Sam Stafford called Out of the Parx:

“Out of the Parx with Jon Marks”debuts at 11am today. Click to watch live or whenever you want. Click to like and subscribe to @betPARX YouTube https://t.co/zVZnkYYzea

— Jon Marks (@JonMarksMedia) April 3, 2024

It’s just a weekly thing, so there will probably be news on something more in the coming weeks. Jon did appear with Gargano and Jamie Lynch at PHLY, which was a reprise of the 97.5 the Fanatic days.

8) Nothing on the Mike Missanelli front. Absolutely nothing. It sounds like talks continue with Beasley management, but as of right now, there’s nothing new to report on the possibility of Mike going back to 97.5 to work middays. The last update we had was both Mike and P.D. Scott Masteller confirming talks.

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