Craig Carton's return to WFAN, his third stint, certainly would add juice to sports talk radio
Craig Carton in WFAN's studio on May 24, 2021. Credit: Corey Sipkin
No one in the radio business is surprised that Craig Carton appears to be headed back to WFAN for a third stint.
The report to that effect in The Athletic on Tuesday was news, no doubt, so this is not to diminish that.
But all signs pointed to this as an inevitability once Carton’s FS1 morning TV show, “Breakfast Ball,” was canceled in July.
Why? For the same reason star athletes and coaches get multiple chances: talent.
Heck, a week after Carton lost his Fox gig, here is how I started my column on this subject:
“If Craig Carton becomes available, WFAN can, should and probably will seek to bring him back to the station for a third term.”
And here we are.
According to The Athletic, Carton will return to afternoon drive time in January, perhaps paired with overnight host Chris McMonigle, with Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber moving to midday.
Sal Licata and Brandon Tierney would be out of the midday slot, but Licata could reemerge at night in the time period that Keith McPherson left last week.
WFAN declined to comment on any of this. But again, it all makes too much sense not to be true, and it has been something the station has been pondering since midsummer, pending whether Carton could get approval from Fox, to which he was under contract through mid-2026.
Carton is not everyone’s cup of tea.
He was not from 2007 to 2017, when he paired with Boomer Esiason in the morning before he was arrested on federal fraud and conspiracy charges and later spent about a year in prison.
He was not when he returned to WFAN in late 2020, joined with Roberts in the afternoon, then left in June 2023 to focus solely on his FS1 program and get a better work/life balance.
And he is not now. But what he is, and always has been, is a talented radio personality, a ratings draw and a lightning rod.
Sports talk radio is a stale genre when not done well, and right now most of the buzz the station generates comes from its morning show featuring Esiason and Gregg Giannotti.
Carton, 56, would put a jolt into afternoons, and Roberts and Barber might be better suited to midday anyway. (Ratings for these shows have not been publicly available for recent quarterly books.)
WFAN and its parent company, Audacy, do not take moves like this lightly, aware of the effect on those involved, personally and professionally.
But this is the business they’ve chosen. There are no lifetime appointments in radio, and Chris Oliviero, a powerful Audacy executive whose relationship with Carton goes back decades, must do what is best for the company.
In February, Carton told Newsday, "I'd be lying if I told you there's never a day where I missed it or wanted to be part of the New York conversation, because it’s in my blood.
“But schedule-wise, relationship-wise, with my family, my wife, my kids, it’s been huge. It's been a huge positive for me getting some level of normal sleep.”
That problem went away when his TV show did.
Licata vowed on the air in July that he would not go quietly.
“Little old me, I’m just a washed-up talk radio host that will probably lose his job when Craig Carton comes back. What do I know?” he said, according to Awful Announcing.
“And by the way, I’m not worried about Craigy coming back. I told it to his face. This was years ago, whenever he came back the last time. You can come back all you want; you’re not taking my spot.”
It appears there always will be a spot for Carton, though.
When I wrote about this in July, I closed with: “In a sports talk radio environment that could use some juice, Carton would put a squeeze on everyone.”
Buckle up!
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
