After a mini-retirement, Mike Francesa was back on the air at WFAN Tuesday afternoon. He said it was nice to be back and a little surprising to be back. He also said, “I missed doing the show, I admit it.” Francesa said he wasn’t going to go through everything that went on because “some of it is none of your business.”
The New York Post reported that Francesa met with Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray, and Bart Scott earlier in the day, and during their now shorter 2-hour shift said they were all on the same page.
The WFAN studio is now named after Francesa. A parting gift for 30 years of service from PD Mark Chernoff. Francesa admitted Tuesday that was kind of weird and said he’s not going to mention the name of the studio on the air. Or, perhaps, Boomer and Gio will unscrew the sign when they arrive in the morning.
Francesa said the motivation for his return was his new app which will be launched later in the summer or fall, and he wanted to come back to WFAN where he could do his radio show and use the show as a vehicle to promote the app. The app is an equal partnership between Francessa, Entercom, and the agency that now represents Francesa. And it’s become clear that this new deal was made at the corporate level, between Francesa, the agency that now represents him, and Entercom CEO David Field.
The app is called “Mikes On,” and it will include Francesa’s Sunday football show, which will not be broadcast on the radio. He said he plans to do some new stuff on the app. “We’re going to really, I think, break some ground with it. And that’s what I really wanted to do. I wanted to do something different, something new. There will be a place for other voices on there, not just mine. That’s my goal. It’s something I want to have many years from now. Who knows who’s going to work on it? I want to find some aspiring new broadcasters. Who knows, maybe someday my kids will work on it.”
Francesa said he met with podcasting companies but he did not want to sound like everyone else. “They made very sound offers but I wanted to try to do something different.”
Check out more of how day one of career two for Mike Francesa went down HERE on the WFAN website.
