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Mike Florio Proves He Can Tell Any Story He Wants to With Father of Mine

“I think pride can be a very dangerous element when you’re talking about something like this. I think you have to be willing to go back and push yourself to make it better.”

Derek Futterman

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In 1973, mob rule was commonplace in small towns such as Wheeling, WV and it engendered immense levels of fear and anxiety among residents. On one hand, some people chose to join the mobs while others were influenced by the actions of those groups. Some of the groups garnered a familial sense in that progeny followed in the footsteps of their kin, most of them accustomed to it as a way of life; however, some former mob members recognized the err of their ways and tried to discourage others from entering it.

Take Johnny Mesange, for example, who left his life in the mob and is now watching his son J.J. Jenkins begin to immerse himself in the lifestyle. He is not sure how to feel about him joining mob boss Paul Verbania and falling in love with his mistress Leslie Fitzpatrick, a haphazard decision caustic to the safety and wellbeing of he and others in the community.

Although the story told in the forthcoming book Father of Mine is fictional, its contents are based on true events. In fact, the idea for the story was contrived by Mike Florio – an NFL commentator on NBC Sports and owner of ProFootballTalk – when he was in a deep slumber on the night of his birthday. In the middle of the night, he began experiencing a particularly vivid dream about his father, who really had been a bookie for a mob in Wheeling.

“When you wake up, it was like you actually lived it but it was so ridiculous that it doesn’t make any sense, and if you try to tell somebody about it, nobody cares,” Florio said. “It was one of those moments, but it had elements in it that made me think, ‘You know what? In a weird sort of way, there’s a story to be told in all of this.’”

In June 2020, the sports world had come to a screeching halt due to the unmitigated spread of COVID-19. While sports eventually did make their return, most did so without fans at venues, and there were a litany of rules and regulations in place to ensure participants and employees would remain healthy. The National Football League was in the midst of its offseason and working to safeguard its players and personnel for the upcoming season. 

There were no offseason programs across the league over that summer. With an inordinate amount of free time on his hands, Florio, who had authored various other nonfiction books about the sport, decided to write a fictional story in a first person point of view. His ability to be receptive towards criticism and the exactitudes in the passion he has for storytelling resulted in changing course entirely after the first draft, introducing perspectives from other characters to effectuate a broader parlance and understanding of the situation.

“This thing’s had a three-year life cycle where it goes from the original draft, and it’s hard to be critical of your own writing because your inclination is, ‘I put all this time into it; why would I tear it down and rebuild it? I’ve already put the time in; I’ve already done it,’” Florio expressed. “I think pride can be a very dangerous element when you’re talking about something like this. I think you have to be willing to go back and push yourself to make it better.”

Throughout his life, Florio has been an avid reader and possesses an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, whether it be about professional football or extraneous topics. He wants to make an impact on readers and hopes to establish himself as a trusted, reputable storyteller in works of imagination, fact-based reporting and erudite opinement alike.

“I know how I enjoy the experience of having a book that gets me immersed and engrossed,” Florio said. “I don’t want to put it down, but I also do want to put it down because I’m going to finish it and then I’m going to have to find something else to read. I know how hard it is to find a book that sparks that kind of zeal to just get fully immersed in it.”

While Florio had a nascent interest in football and grew up watching myriad contests, he never pursued a career in sports media and effectively stumbled into it by accident. He attended Carnegie Mellon University where he graduated with multiple degrees focused in engineering, and enrolled in West Virginia University to study law. When he began studying the law, it was the first time in his young life Florio saw any clarity about his future, and he proceeded to have great success in the profession.

In April 2000, Florio remembers discovering NFLTalk.com through AOL, a website featuring digital articles about players and teams across the National Football League. He would often consume it during his lunch break, and had the perspicacity to send the website a writing sample on a whim when it advertised openings. As an attorney practicing labor law, Florio was familiar with what it took to compile the information and testimony necessary to conceive a thorough discernment of events and how to evoke congruent imagery in the courtroom.

The storytelling he was transitioning into pertained solely to professional football writing for a completely different audience. Having that awareness guided Florio on how to transmit information, intersperse opinion and appeal in a clear and concise manner. Few people outside of the legal spectrum generally engage with content in courts – reporters, scholars and students notwithstanding. The parlance imbued in the American legal system greatly contrasts with that of quotidian patois, posing a quandary to Florio about how to define “good writing.” Answering this question has been essential in building a successful, multiplatform career spanning sports media and now, fiction writing. The answers he has found have formed the basis on which he constructs every piece of content he produces.

The premise can be thought of in a variety of ways. Some would say good writing includes a strong lexicon and command of the English language; others would argue it is less about the language and more focused on fostering a connection with the audience. Experienced writers find their niche and establish distinctive styles conducive to the task at hand, but most do not discover this on their first day. In taking an atypical path into a dynamic industry predicated on promulgating news, opinion and analysis as it pertains to sports, Florio knew that no matter his style, he needed to keep people interested. For inspiration, he looked to various mentors in sports media, including Peter King of NBC Sports (formerly of Sports Illustrated), but did not want to perturb those in the industry and usually embarked on new endeavors through trial and error.

“I was always kind of an interloper and a disruptor, and I really wasn’t looking for mentors in the classic sense because I was coming into an established business through a new pathway that people in the established business probably didn’t appreciate,” Florio said. “I always kind of kept to myself and tried to make my own way.”

One person Florio considers a bonafide mentor is Bruce Springsteen, one of the most beloved rock artists and live performers ever.. Despite not being able to read music, he is a savant when it comes to sketching out melodies and pairing them with metrical, compendious poetry. What makes Springsteen an icon though, is undoubtedly his stellar consistency, and it is something to which aspiring and existing sports media professionals can take heed.

“That’s required musical catalog for any sports writer,” Florio said of Springsteen, who recently became the first artist to have a No. 1 album in five consecutive decades. “It’s an artist I’ve discovered just in the past few years. There is such a brilliant simplicity in his lyrics, and that has really been a guide for me. As you construct a story, it doesn’t have to have big, flowery words to be good writing. It’s just how you tell the stories; how you press the buttons of the reader; and how you get them engaged in turning one page to the next.”

Especially in today’s era where people generally garner disinterest towards monotonous content, it is crucial that authors captivate consumers at the start of a piece of content. That is what Florio wants from every piece posted at ProFootballTalk

“The most important relationship is the relationship with the audience,” Florio said. “To me, that’s more important than anything else – it has to be one that’s founded on trust, authenticity, originality and ultimately giving the people what they want. I think one of the reasons so many media outlets have failed over the years is they get mixed up in failing to give their audience what their audience wants.”

At the same time, Florio and other columnists need to stay aware of the circuitry of information, meaning they cannot devote all of their time on one topic. Since 2004, Florio estimates he has written tens of thousands of columns for the website – about 12 to 20 per day – and has worked every day to curate and produce compelling and engaging content to serve the audience. The impermanence of today’s reporting keeps Florio motivated to stay in the cognizance and psyche of readers, while simultaneously inspiring him to embark on long-term projects with the intent of fixating himself in the content ecosystem.

“Everything I write today is meaningless by tomorrow,” Florio said. “Everything I write tomorrow is meaningless by the next day. Nobody’s going back and reading something I wrote from six months ago saying, ‘Wow, that’s a really great, well-crafted and well-formed story that you have there.’ No, it’s meaningless. All they want to see is what you’re writing today because it’s driven by the information you’re providing.”

Florio hopes his book serves the same purpose — as an outlet for people to take enjoyment and find an escape in their day, but he wants the story told in Father of Mine to have a little more staying power both for the audience and for the culture at large.  

One venture he has not had the opportunity to become involved in is the world of cinematography. While it is largely out of his control, making it to the silver screen is a goal Florio has for himself, along with interspersing his creative expertise.

“I think anybody that writes a novel likes to think of how it would look if it were a movie or a TV show,” Florio said. “A lot of what we consume comes that way, and I think everything I’ve written would be conducive to something like that.”

Whether it is as a lawyer, journalist or entrepreneur, Mike Florio has followed a basic principle – outworking his competition in order to find success. Through it all, he has built meaningful and enduring relationships, and stayed true to himself. As his book, Father of Mine, prepares to hit shelves on April 25, he will pause to recognize the moment but quickly pick up a pen and resume masterfully crafting and telling stories in a variety of different ways. All of it hinges on the ability to create and maintain relationships.

“The challenge is to do your job the right way without undermining relationships, and that can be difficult from time to time,” Florio said. “People do have hard feelings, and sometimes you do damage that has to be undone and sometimes you have some difficult conversations.”

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Kim Mulkey Now Has Everyone Anticipating Washington Post Story

I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it.

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photo of LSU women's college basketball coach Kim Mulkey
Credit: Dailymail.co.uk

The Washington Post, you might’ve heard, has a story coming out about controversial LSU women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. The reason you might’ve heard is because Kim Mulkey told you. The Tigers coach read a fiery prepared statement just before her team started the Women’s NCAA Tournament. In the statement, Mulkey threatened to sue The Post for defamation before the first word was even published.

Now, I’ve never run a public relations firm but that did not seem like a good idea. The Washington Post story on Mulkey is one of the bigger stories in sports right now and nobody even knows what’s in it. The reason the story, apparently unflattering to Mulkey, is even on anyone’s radar screen is Mulkey herself.

It all started with an innocuous social media post by Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde right in the middle of the most anticipated two days in sports, the NCAA Tournament Round of 64. On his X account, Forde posted: “Hearing some buzz about a big Washington Post story in the works on LSU women’s hoops coach Kim Mulkey, potentially next week. Wagons being circled, etc.”

You know what generally will go unnoticed at 4:00 on the first Friday of the NCAA Tournament? A post on X about a women’s basketball coach. But don’t tell Mulkey, she saw Forde’s post and decided to fight fire with nuclear weaponry. The result: the average person like me now is really interested in what has Mulkey so incensed. By “average person like me” I mean that I can’t imagine what headline, under normal circumstances, the Washington Post would have to put on a Kim Mulkey story to make me want to read it. Maybe:

“LSU Women’s Coach Discovers Ark of the Covenant”

Or:

“Mulkey Reveals True JFK Assassin(s)”

Perhaps:

“Famed Women’s Basketball Coach Reveals the Mystery Behind Slow Drivers in the Left Lane”

Literally any of those catch my attention more than whatever will likely be the Washington Post headline about Mulkey. But now Mulkey is “Mad as Hell and is not going to take this anymore” so I now have an interest I would never before have had in this story. It has been fascinating to watch the online speculation about the subject of the article and all we really know, as of now, is that it will be written by Kent Babb. This is a dream come true for Babb; he writes an article that is, presumably, not flattering about Kim Mulkey and, before it is even published, she gives the article the greatest commercial anyone could give it. Babb couldn’t have entered into a business agreement with Mulkey and had this turn out better for him.

For those who don’t follow Babb, he is a former NFL reporter who now is an award-winning writer for the Washington Post. In his 14 years with The Post, he has written sports features and authored a couple of books. One of those sports features stories was a deep dive into what he viewed as a large inequity in the level of pay for LSU head football coach Brian Kelly and his LSU players. It is this piece Mulkey described as a “hit piece” and, based on that piece, referred to Babb as a “sleazy reporter.” Babb, and many others, resented the fact his story was labeled as a hit piece. In fact, Babb essentially confirmed he was the author Mulkey was referencing when he shared the original article on X with the comment: “Hit piece?”

Whether a printed piece or a recorded interview, I can’t imagine a better promotion for it than the subject of the interview threatening a libel/slander lawsuit, especially before it is even released. That simply screams “This piece is salacious!!” Also, libel and slander suits get settled all the time, right? Of course they don’t, they seem to never even get filed. That little thing called discovery is a scary thing for most public figures.

The NCAA Tournament has been very entertaining, and I think the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight will be terrific. For only the fifth time ever, the top two seeds have advanced to the third round which sets up for a remarkable weekend. For me, I guess it will now include a Washington Post article, not a sentence I’d normally say.

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Ian Eagle Crushing It for CBS As Replacement for Jim Nantz

Eagle continues to be a shining example of what a network play-by-play announcer should be.

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Photo of Ian Eagle and the CBS Sports logo

I’ll admit, it’s been a little strange not hearing Jim Nantz during this year’s NCAA Tournament. Nantz stepped aside to concentrate on golf and the NFL after a long run covering the Final Four. Change is sometimes hard to accept, we are all creatures of habit, and I’m sure it’s a little weird for Nantz himself this time of year. But change doesn’t always have to be a bad thing. When it comes to Ian Eagle, not that I’m surprised, so far, so good.

Eagle is no stranger to CBS viewers. He’s been with the network since 1998 calling college basketball games and the NFL through the years. That certainly made the transition a little easier for everyone involved. CBS, the viewers and Eagle himself. Familiarity in these cases doesn’t breed content, it breeds a more comfortable broadcast and an easier handle on the change itself.

For Eagle, one of the other benefits for him was working with familiar folks, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson. Eagle estimates that he and Raftery have called 600 basketball games together, because they were longtime partners on the NBA’s Nets broadcasts. Eagle has also previously worked with Hill in college basketball, the same for Wolfson.

“To do this with Bill, Grant, and Tracy, it really is going to feel very seamless. In many ways, it will feel like we’ve been doing it together for many years,” says Eagle on a conference call before the Big Dance.

It sounds seamless too. It’s not underrated to have a good rapport with the folks that you’re working with. Everyone is trying to get used to a new voice and the idiosyncrasies of a new announcer. It’s much less of a chore, when you know and have worked with your co-workers and partners before.  You know what to expect from them, and they know what to expect from you. That’s good.

I think Eagle is killing it in his new role. You could even tell during the Big Ten Tournament that led up to the “Big Dance” that he was not only ready, he was ready to roll. It’s easy to hear how much he loves doing what he’s doing. That’s the case in all of the sports he calls.

Eagle continues to be a shining example of what a network play-by-play announcer should be. He has the ability to combine his talent with some personality, but never at the expense of the action he’s calling. His broadcasts always hit the mark, as he rises to the occasion when the moment calls for it.

What do I mean by personality? He manages to make us laugh, even in some tense moments of a game. He also manages to articulate our thoughts in some situations, like this example from the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. 

Sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson had a report during the UConn/Northwestern game about the superstitions of Huskies’ coach Dan Hurley. He wears the same red dragon underwear and suit as he did last year. Wolfson said Hurley’s wife travels with a portable washing machine to make sure his clothes stay clean. Leading Eagle to ask the question on all our minds:

“Who has a portable washing machine?! I didn’t even know that existed!”

Also in that game, Eagle had a couple of other great moments. UConn big man Donovan Clingan had a couple of swats on one play.

“Denied! Clingan! Denied! Two for the price of one!” Quick thinking and entertaining at the same time. Later when a ball got pinned between the basket and the backboard, Eagle said, “Oooh! A Brooklyn wedgie!”

Great stuff. None of his ‘ad-libs’ sound like they are forced. It’s within the flow of the action and just seem to come to him. It’s pretty amazing to be that quick on your feet, when you’re trying to make sure to get the call correct above all else. I’m sure we’re all in for many more treats like that along the way from Eagle.

In general, when fans are watching a tournament game, they probably aren’t thinking about the preparation that goes into a broadcast. Especially for a play-by-play announcer. The first weekend network announcers calling a couple of games in the same day. There’s also only a day in between the first and second rounds to prep for teams that you may or may not have seen during the college season.  The turnaround is quick and demanding.  

“It feels like an information avalanche in many ways,” Eagle said recently on 670 The Score. “The fact that I’ve done it for so long would make you think, ‘oh, he’s got it down, he has the system, he found the secret sauce.’ No, it feels the same way every year.”

Eagle says even veteran announcers like himself have to manage stress levels and work efficiently once they know which games they’ll call. “The two or three days leading up to the tournament, I must admit, are probably the most angst-riddled of the year because it’s a little bit out of your control.” Eagle told 670 The Score.

Yes, the stress level is great on the broadcasters, but how about what Clark Kellogg continues to do at the NCAA Tournament and the Final Four? For the 8th year, he’ll join Kevin Kugler and Jim Jackson on Westwood One’s broadcast of the Final Four and Championship Game on radio. At the same time, Kellogg will be a studio analyst for the television coverage. How does he pull it off? Following the pregame show broadcast on TV, Kellogg will make his way courtside to the radio broadcast position to join Kugler and Jackson. Then, he will rejoin TV for halftime before repeating the process in the second half and postgame. 

Working this tournament isn’t easy for these broadcasters. It’s a big stage for sure, but as you’ve read, there’s big pressure that goes along with it. The audience is usually huge, and announcers are constantly put under the microscope. Fans want to make sure that you know their team, pronunciations and all. Stories. Bios. All of it. Cut these folks a little slack, information gathering with little time to do it, isn’t exactly simple. They do a damn good job.

Eagle himself, is doing a tremendous job. The 3-man booth works so well because of his ability to keep it all together. He can set up either Raftery or Hill with a serious basketball question, or deliver a great ‘straight line’ to bring out their personalities. It’s a gift. Eagle has that knack for knowing when to go ‘rogue’ and go for that entertaining line, that seems to fit in perfectly. Speaking of fitting fine, those rather large shoes he had to fill, they’re becoming the perfect size.

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Andrew Salciunas Aims to Thrive in Morning Drive on 97.5 The Fanatic

“We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing.”

Derek Futterman

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Andrew Salciunas
Courtesy: Beasley Media Group

When 97.5 The Fanatic midday host Anthony Gargano agreed to a deal to contribute to PHLY Sports, a local digital venture within ALLCITY Network, he was promptly suspended by Beasley Media Group and subsequently sued for breach of contract. Although the two sides eventually reached a settlement and officially parted ways, the future of the daypart was still in question. In the interim time period, the station granted Andrew Salciunas the opportunity to lead a four-hour solo program with producer Ray Dunne. Salciunas had served as Gargano’s producer in the midday slot and still has a strong relationship with the sports media personality today despite no longer working together.

The onerous aspect of the situation, however, was in recognizing that Salciunas was being afforded a chance to prove himself as a host in the marketplace. In the past, he had filled in when Gargano took vacations, but it was not for an extended period of time. Although he was familiar with the flow of a midday program, achieving a successful, yet sudden assimilation into a regular timeslot without a partner was an invigorating circumstance.

“I knew that it was going to be a learning experience because it’s one thing to host a show on Saturday or it’s one thing to host a weekly podcast and you have a week’s worth of content at your disposal,” Salciunas said. “It’s another thing to [be] hosting every single day and needing to come up with new ideas and new angles and new twists on things, so it was a challenge knowing that I was going to have to do that for however long the process was going to be.”

Salciunas received help from program director Scott Masteller, a sports radio veteran who has helped elevate brands and nurture budding talent. Several months later, Masteller asked Salciunas how he would feel about working with morning program host John Kincade. Salciunas replied by saying that it was something he would be interested in doing, and he later added that he already wakes up early and could easily work in morning drive. Salciunas was somewhat nonplussed when he discovered that Masteller’s intention was to have him anchor the program rather than Kincade, who has been hosting in the daypart since January 2021.

In the weeks and months ensuing, Salciunas and Kincade were involved in meetings to plan the new program, which officially made its debut on 97.5 The Fanatic last week and is titled Kincade & Salciunas. Both hosts knew about the program for roughly two months, and Salciunas is surprised that it was kept a secret for as long as it was. Outside of their scheduled meetings, Salciunas was able to speak with Kincade between their shows since they occurred after the other as well. From the onset, he wanted to make his thoughts about the program clear to ensure a smooth transition amid a quest to inform and entertain the audience.

“The first thing I told John when they told us that this was the plan moving forward was that, ‘This is going to be our show,’” Salciunas recalled. “Yes, I might be the guy running the ins and outs out of commercial breaks. I’m the guy that brings on the guests; I’m the guy that brings on the callers, but this is our show. We both have ideas, we’re both passionate about Philadelphia sports teams, we’re both high-energy people, we’re both opinionated and we’re also respectful of each other.”

While there is natural disagreement between Salciunas and Kincade on a variety of sports topics, they make sure not to fabricate their discussions and engender debate for the sake of the show. Instead of feigning their contrarian discourse, there is a legitimate willingness to be genuine with their audience while continuing to put radio first. Salciunas, Kincade and show producer Connor Thomas all contribute ideas for the program to appeal to the audience and continue building the show as a whole. Thomas also had familiarity in working with Kincade since he served as an associate producer on his previous morning program.

“I’m not a former journalist; he’s not a former professional athlete,” Salciunas said. “We are two radio guys that kind of know what we’re doing. Even though our opinions might differ on sports-related stuff, we see doing radio in a similar way.”

Upon Kincade officially joining 97.5 The Fanatic, he demonstrated his magnanimity and commitment to his colleagues by offering to take all of them out to lunch individually to learn more about them. It was a gesture that surprised Salciunas and something that stuck with him, ultimately helping familiarize themselves with one another and subsequently creating a viable on-air product.

“He’s one of those guys who likes getting to know people, and I think that’s helped a lot,” Salciunas said. “We already had that sort of knowledge of one another [and] we already had that relationship, and because we’re just both so bought in and both so hungry, that’s made it so much easier that we’re willing to do whatever it takes to make the show work.”

Before arriving at 97.5 The Fanatic, Kincade had worked at sports radio both at the local and national levels while also hosting a podcast with Hall of Fame center and Inside the NBA studio analyst Shaquille O’Neal. Bringing him back to his home marketplace and realizing success in the morning daypart was valuable as the sports media ecosystem underwent stretches of change. Transitioning to the new morning show iteration without colleagues Bob Cooney and Pat Egan presented its challenges, but Salciunas has had no qualms that Kincade was invested to win. As a result, the transition has been relatively simple in terms of building palpable chemistry among the on-air team.

“He believes in anybody that he works with,” Salciunas said of Kincade, “and knowing that somebody has worked that long as long as he has in sports radio that he values the young person’s opinion, not just in sports but in terms of radio, that goes a long way.”

There is constant communication between the morning show team leading up to a program outside of typical pre-show meetings and twice-weekly conversations with their boss. Salciunas arrives at the station well before the start of the program and compiles ideas from the previous day into a document, along with ideas from others that come during their commutes. Additionally, they continuously monitor the news cycle and determine what to address on the air while also interviewing special guests throughout the week.

Effectuating a fully prepared show rundown by 6 a.m. EST has been marginally difficult, along with the fact that it can be difficult to book guests on short notice before sunrise. Because of this, the program frequently outlines its guests early in the week and makes adjustments as necessary while maintaining fealty towards conveying their true, authentic personalities.

“I’m a little bit more energetic on the radio because I understand the entertainment portion of doing what we do and having to properly express myself,” Salciunas said. “I’m probably not going to scream at a bar, but when I converse with callers; when I converse with John [or] producers… that’s who I am as a person. There’s just a microphone in front of me.”

When he first started working at 97.5 The Fanatic as an intern, Salciunas did not have a goal of eventually becoming an on-air talent. He was content with his role as a producer, which was borne out of an internship where he worked with Jon Marks and Steve Vassalotti. Both station members served as mentors that he utilized to gain information and advice, a fortuitous outcome after Salciunas impetuously applied for the opening.

While Salciunas was matriculating at Temple University, he needed at least three internship credits in order to qualify for graduation. Reflecting back on his education days, he does not regard himself as the best student and recognized that he needed to intern with the radio station to set himself apart. Honing his focus in sports media took time since he had varied interests in areas such as reporting, podcasting and play-by-play announcing, but he ultimately gravitated towards the sports radio format during his time in Philadelphia.

Salciunas made a favorable impression on those with 97.5 The Fanatic and ended up being hired as an associate producer where he learned more about the format and its programming. Eric Camille, a former executive producer at the station, is someone Salciunas regards as seminal to his professional development.

“He was the guy that hired me out of my internship, and then once I started working, he really helped me,” Salciunas said. “He kind of took me under his wing and helped me out a lot.”

Once Salciunas was hired as a full-time producer, he began to work with Mike Missanelli on his midday program, providing an invaluable learning experience to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the sports media industry. As a veteran host who has captivated Philadelphia sports fans and media consumers at large, Salciunas noticed that collaborating on Missanelli’s program was a different experience than the other shows he had done. Whereas a morning drive show is oftentimes one of the first points of reaction on a given day, Missanelli knew that he would need to approach his daypart differently and adopted a paradigmatic style implementing second-level topics.

“It’s not just going on the air and reacting to an Eagles loss,” Salciunas explained. “It’s reacting to a storyline within an Eagles loss or reacting to a storyline within an Eagles win that may generate conversation. Trying to figure out topics that generate conversation but are not just the, ‘Oh wow, I’m angry they lost today,’ and give out the phone number. It’s [trying] to find topics that make people think and make yourself think and make the audience think.”

When Missanelli left the station, Salciunas began his stint working with Anthony Gargano where he began occasionally hosting select programs. The rationale behind his decision to go behind the microphone was that when the Eagles won a Super Bowl championship, the station needed someone to host from 2 to 5 a.m. Salciunas decided to volunteer for the program, presuming that it sounded fun. From that shift on, he continued his work as a producer while also refining his craft behind the microphone in a major market. It deviated from a philosophy perpetuated by former program director Matt Nahigian of limiting the amount of time producers were on the air, assuming that consumers listened to hear the hosts.

“Now you have to be a producer,” Salciunas affirmed. “You look at both radio stations in Philadelphia – a lot of the hosts now were former producers, and so you learn so much of the craft and then you figure out your own role. You figure out how you handle yourself as a host, so I think producing first before becoming a talk show host should be the way to go moving forward.”

Beasley Media Group’s 97.5 The Fanatic shares the Philadelphia marketplace with Audacy-owned SportsRadio 94WIP, and both stations have had intense battles in the ratings over the years. Salciunas shared that most people between the two stations have worked with their competitors at some point in their careers, and there is an evident respect that exists between the two entities. With both outlets introducing new morning shows within the last two years though, Salciunas understands there is a chance to gain ground on the WIP Morning Show, which finished ahead in the four Nielsen XTrends quarterly ratings books last year.

“Clearly if somebody’s behind a microphone in Philadelphia, everybody’s talented, and we’re going to do whatever we can to try to bridge that gap a little bit, and we’re seeing some good strides already,” Salciunas said. “I think having a new show is a big part of that trying to grab that initial audience, but then it’s holding on to that initial audience.”

Being able to achieve this outcome, however, requires a commitment to showcasing talent and different personalities. Salciunas referenced how there was a point in John Kincade’s stint hosting mornings in the daypart’s previous iteration where he gained ground on his crosstown competitor Angelo Cataldi with WIP. Kincade, of course, used to work with Cataldi’s show as a contributor and received a chance to take the air while with the outlet.

“I’ve seen the turn of tides of ratings over the years for every show [and] every time slot, so there’s always an opportunity, but that means we always have to be on our game; that means we always have to be doing the best show possible,” Salciunas said. “We can’t go in the next day and say, ‘Wow, that show was really good yesterday. Let’s have some fun today; let’s make this a lighthearted show.’ No, we always have to be thinking about, ‘Alright, what can we do next to put on another great entertaining four-hour radio show?’”

Over the last several years, there have been several leadership changes at 97.5 The Fanatic responsible for overseeing the slate of programming and station operations. Scott Masteller currently leads the outlet, someone in whom Salciunas has confidence that he can continue to elevate the standing of the station. In his earlier years working with 97.5 The Fanatic, Salciunas had an innovative spirit but was discouraged from taking steps to align with the multimedia evolution. For example, when he offered to do a podcast several years ago, someone at the station questioned his judgment and the reasoning behind the idea.

“I was told by someone, ‘What’s the point in doing that? We’re a radio station,’ and I knew back then that that was a mistake to say,” Salciunas explained. “You shouldn’t say, ‘We’re a radio station;’ that was years ago, so seeing that bosses and market managers and hosts and producers all realizing, ‘Alright, we have to adapt,’ that excites me.”

Possessing the background as a producer lends shrewd and calculated judgment on how to include members of the audience into the program. While there are still open phone lines for callers to chime in, the program has introduced a text line and also engages with the audience through the live chat functionality of YouTube. Having Thomas as a producer of the show has helped in this area as well, with Salciunas sharing that he has a strong understanding of how to create and optimize content for various platforms of dissemination.

“We have a great YouTube audience where they basically have their own community all of a sudden,” Salciunas said. “They’re constantly talking about the show, and sometimes we grab what they’re saying on that YouTube feed because that’s another area of today’s new media where you have another avenue to communicate with people.”

As Salciunas grows accustomed to the early start on 97.5 The Fanatic and his new colleagues in morning drive, he is filled with enthusiasm and the prospect of possibility. The radio station has been the only outlet by which he has been employed since the start of his media career, and he hopes to work there for as long as possible. National radio and television intrigue him going forward, but his priority centers on thriving in the new role.

“I want to try to get 97.5 The Fanatic – because it starts in the morning – back up in the map; back in the top five of the ratings books – and that’s going to take some time,” Salciunas said. “We’re a new show – we’re going to have to figure each other out.”

Salciunas expressed that the last year-and-a-half has been “hectic” in the midday daypart, but there has also been excitement surrounding the ephemerality as well. Taking the microphone in a major market with a dedicated sports fanbase such as Philadelphia is a privilege he does not take for granted, and he aspires to continue excelling in the marketplace for years to come.

“I just started, so I’m not thinking about the next step just yet,” Salciunas said. “I want this to last for a long time – for a very long time. If I never have to leave, that would be great.”

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