RADIO WARS: Contract Extension for Jon Marks
94 WIP announced on Wednesday that Joe Giglio and Hugh Douglas will be replacing Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie on the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. midday slot.
In our writeup of the story, we mentioned that Jon Marks had been in contract talks with Audacy, and according to Marks, that’s now been taken care of. He’s under contract for another year and will continue with Ike Reese and Jack Fritz from 2 to 6 p.m., at least until the end of 2023.
Giglio and Douglas will begin when Angelo Cataldi retires, which is a moving target with no set date. Cataldi is going to wrap it up when the Eagles season ends, so let’s assume February as the best case scenario. It means that the only loose ends for Audacy are selecting a producer for the midday show and replacing Giglio on the evening shift (6 p.m.)
The new WIP lineup, come February, will look something like this:
- overnights (Big Daddy’s shift) – Jon Johnson
- morning show: DeCamara, Ritchie, James Seltzer, Rhea Hughes, Devan Kaney (not 5 days), Joe Weachter producing*
- middays: Giglio, Douglas, producer to be named
- afternoon: Marks and Reese, Jack Fritz producing
- 6 p.m. – TBD/Phillies games/leading off
- 10pm: various hosts
- weekends: various hosts
*The only thing I’m not totally clear on is the divvying up of duties between Weachter and Seltzer. Is James going to be on the mic? Weachter doesn’t speak in the mornings, he just handles producer stuff. We’ll see how they arrange things when the show kicks off in a few months.
You also have to consider that Giglio is a very good baseball guy and would do the Leading Off show prior to Phillies games. WIP might be able to use Fritz (another baseball guy) in this capacity by extending him an hour coming out of Marks and Reese. Evenings are a little weird because the Phillies season is lengthy, so that’s something else for Audacy to think about.