Andrew Marchand is a sports media reporter for the New York Post. Does a good job with the NY radio scene.

He authored a story Tuesday titled WFAN favorite to land Craig Carton as Philly station poses threat, which contains this passage relevant to us:

…Carton’s return, after serving a year in prison for a ticket scam, is drawing closer. WFAN, according to sources, is methodically going through the process as it builds toward making Carton an offer. It has not made one yet, but at this point one is expected in the relatively near future.

Besides FAN, according to sources, Carton has received serious interest to do mornings from a top Philadelphia all-sports station, 97.5, The Fanatic. FAN remains the clear favorite.

Huh, well that would be interesting. Seems unlikely though. Craig Carton would very easily come with a six-figure price tag, and Beasley isn’t exactly swimming in cash right now. The company recently extended wage and salary cuts through the end of the year and parted ways with some talent at their various stations within the Philadelphia cluster. To then go ahead and pay big money to a guy coming out of prison I cannot imagine would be received well from an internal and/or optics standpoint.

Carton does have Philly connections. He spent some time with 610 WIP back in the mid-90s and worked for ex-Fanatic Program Director Eric Johnson at New Jersey 101.5 before leaving for WFAN. Sources tell us that Johnson spoke with Carton while serving as 97.5 PD, but obviously nothing materialized from that. Carton, at the time, was doing mornings with Boomer Esiason in New York.

This could be an agent or somebody else name-dropping 97.5 as a way to drive up WFAN’s asking price. Just a guess. He’s coming out of jail on securities and wire fraud convictions and had to pay a lot of money in restitution, which probably cost him years of earnings. He was also completely dissed by the judge, who greeted him at sentencing by saying “first time, long time.”