Thursday evening, Mike Francesa took a moment during his WFAN program to address the sharing of his content.
While celebrating the career of WFAN-original John Minko, Francesa quickly strayed to threaten legal action on anyone who shares his show without consent. It appeared to be a direct attack at Funhouse (@backaftathis), the Twitter handle known for highlighting Mike Francesa’s on-air miscues.
“We’ve been planning this for a long time,” Francesa said. “This copyrighted broadcast and telecast is presented by the authority of Entercom, RADIO.COM and WFAN and may not – remember – may not be reproduced or retransmitted without the express written consent of Entercom Communications Corporation and RADIO.COM. And that means anybody.”
On Monday, Francesa had a throwback style rant, triggered by his dissatisfaction with President Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rant was clipped and shared by Funhouse and subsequently written about on various platforms worldwide, including BSM.
The rant quickly gained attention and throughout the week it was viewed an impressive 2.6 million times. Even as the video gained national attention, it surprisingly was not shared by the WFAN, RADIO.COM Sports, Entercom or Mike’s On social media accounts.
Although Funhouse is not associated with Entercom, sharing the President Trump clip was an example of positive publicity for Francesa. After it was tweeted by Funhouse, the video generated reaction from a broader audience which even included actor Henry Winkler.
While Funhouse has certainly shared many clips that poke fun at the sports radio icon, the unidentified social media account also did a lot of the brunt work in presenting Francesa to a younger audience. Now it’s up to Entercom and Francesa to make sure that content still gets shared.
