Last month we wrote of WFAN's Boomer & Gio radio program:
Boomer & Carton was the #1 morning sports talk show in America for a decade because Craig Carton ran the show and Boomer Esiason chimed in with news making sound bites. Now, despite Gregg Giannotti's breadth AND depth of knowledge...Esiason is running the show.
And not well.
Al Dukes has no clue what to do. Neither does Mark Chernoff. (Jesus, the latter hired Bart Scott and Maggie Gray...the former produced Ron & Fez.) The superfluous Jerry Recco 20 minute updates that should be top of the hour 1 minute blurbs? Folks are tuning out in droves to Bernie and Sid, Len Berman, and, after 9am - in increasing numbers to the aforementioned Craig Carton.
We ended that with the link 'And now let's sum up why Boomer should not be the lead dog.'
Earlier this month we wrote:
WFAN needs to do everything it can to keep an audience from 6-9AM. A) Dump the Jerry Recco hourly updates. They're superflous and with John Sterling clips they're annoying. Folks are switching to Bernie and Sid during that time. Often forgetting to come back. B) Let Gio drive the show. When Chris Carlin bitched Giannotti didn't promote his guest strongly enough - Gio led and that led to the best 7 minutes of Boomer & Gio to date.
Today, Andrew Marchand in the NY Post:
This is where we offer free advice to sportscasting community, which we are sure the recipients all appreciate. For WFAN’s “Boomer and Gio” to be at its best, it needs Gregg Giannotti to lead the show more and not Boomer Esiason. Whatever you want to say about Craig Carton, he knew how to drive a show, which allowed Esiason to work off of him as a big name with real affection for multiple sports. Esiason sort of assumed the lead spot when Carton was exiled after his arrest and update guy Jerry Recco filled in.
However, now FAN should have Giannotti run the show, because he is the more talented radio personality, knowing where to take the program. The ratings with Giannotti replacing Carton have not been great so far, which could be for a variety of reasons and not necessarily the show’s quality. But for the program to grow, Giannotti needs to be the starting quarterback.
Great idea there Andy. And you did it in less than 30 paragraphs. (Easy when it's a stolen idea, we guess.)
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