Most talk show hosts would never think of walking away from their dream job if they were number one in the ratings. Mike Francesa did it. Friday was his last show on WFAN in New York, a radio station he helped build as the first sports talk radio station in America.
Francesa’s wife Roe had never been on his show…until Friday, when she was the final caller of Francesa’s final show. Francesa spent the final 30 minutes of his program thanking everyone he could for his 30 years on the year, especially his audience. Francesa teased that audience that he would be doing something else, (he’s not retiring), but he would not say what that was.
Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan launched WFAN when he owned the station. He told Radio Ink he still remembers the day Francesa was hired. “The feeling was, “Francesca’s a genius, but what does he know about radio?” Well, what he knew about radio was how to connect with millions of people for five hours a day for all of these years. He knew how to understand the hearts and minds of New Yorkers, it’s players, coaches and owners and be the voice of an entire region. He knew how to entertain, inform, and sometimes even enrage people who looked to sports as their respite from the daily challenges of life. That’s what he knew about radio.”
Listen to clips of Mike’s final show HERE
