Mike Francesa radio simulcast doesn’t fit SNY model, says network president
Mike Francesa is shown is his home in Manhasset on March 13, 2014. Credit: Newsday / Chris Ware
Mike Francesa’s WFAN radio show still does not have a TV simulcast outlet and, with 22 months left in his term at the station, might not have one again.
But after leaving Fox in September, Francesa did have conversations with executives at potential landing spots, including one that came as a bit of a surprise at the time – SNY, which traditionally has shown little interest in simulcasts.
Last week, SNY president Steve Raab confirmed he had met with Francesa. So why did nothing come of it?
“I would say we always had some level of interest,” Raab said. “We never had deep enough conversations that it was ever imminent and he always seemed to have better options for him.
“But one of the obstacles was, unlike other RSNs [regional sports networks] in the market, we do so much original programming out of our studio, and in our model we would have had to preempt the last hour of his show, which if you sort of watch and see how the show is formatted, [there are] a lot of guests in that last hour.
“So to preempt what is arguably his juiciest hour because it just conflicts with our model probably wasn’t good for him or was going to make sense for us.”
Is Raab surprised Francesa still does not have a simulcast partner? (Francesa said in December he was enjoying the flexibility offered by being a radio-only show.)
“Not really, but it’s not about that show,” Raab said. “We’re 10 years in, and we’ve never had radio simulcasts. It doesn’t work for our model.
“So I can’t speak to the other RSNs and why his show or any other show does work for them or what changes so that what used to work now doesn’t work for them when it’s never worked for our model, so I can’t really speak to that.”
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.
