Jon Marks joined us on Wednesday’s Crossing Broadcast for a 45-minute discussion covering everything. We talked about his 94 WIP exit, which he knew was coming for a full year, we talked about Audacy’s financial troubles, and we talked about the state of terrestrial radio as 2024 approaches.

It was a super-candid and open conversation, and nothing was off limits. I’ll link the full episode at the bottom of this post, but thought it would be a good idea to transcribe some of the most interesting passages from the discussion.

Outside of family, did other factors influence the decision?

“I’ve known this was coming for a year. We tried to work things out and they (WIP management) were very respectful of the way I felt about everything… There’s the children thing, there’s the quality of life thing, and there’s the financial thing. And the financial thing was third. But it’s still a part of it, right? People will say ‘either it’s about your family or it’s not,’ but it also gets to a financial point where you say, ‘I can’t say no to that for my family.‘ I can’t say no to that. It can pay for my kids’ college, or I can buy a shore house to where I can spend more time and commute form the shore in the summer. There are ways you can get around it that help your quality of life when you’re still doing the same thing that maybe you hate. More vacation, more money, things like that.”

On Audacy’s financial issues

“Kevin, you reported (on this) last year when I was more or less going day-to-day, month-to-month because we didn’t have a contract agreement… I want everybody watching right now to understand this, that the company that owns WIP, Audacy, is 1.9 billion dollars in debt. Now how do you get out of debt? Well you have to pay off your debt. So next year they owe four or five hundred million in debt service. They’re losing money on a quarterly basis. So when your business loses money, how do you pay off half a billion dollars of debt coming up? You lay people off, you cut costs, and even then it’s not doing anything. They’re going to have to declare for bankruptcy. It’s a matter of when, not if they do it. After Angelo was gone, they said ‘hey we’re not paying people Angelo money anymore, we’re not paying people Howard money, we’re not paying people Anthony Gargano money.’ (It was) ‘this is what we’re willing to offer you.”

The midday show moving up to mornings

“I don’t know anything first hand, but I know how to read things. Joe DeCamara, they knew he was doing morning drive, and it was taking a while to get the contract done. Why do you think that was? He’s got an agent, Steve Mountain, Steve is saying ‘hey you just paid Angelo a million dollars a year, now you’re offering Joe DeCamara this much money, no no no, you have to give us more money.’ Again, I don’t know this for a fact, but Audacy is probably saying ‘this is what we have to offer, take it or leave it, this is as much as we’re doing.’ Joe DeCamara is not going to leave it, right? It’s a huge opportunity. I left it. The negotiations a year ago, fair offer, nothing that was disrespectful. It was a fair offer, I’m making good money, a lot of money I made was performance bonuses, because we finished first place every book, and my endorsements. Some of those endorsements are because of WIP and the show, and others are mine, that I brought to the station or worked on. A year ago, when we were doing the contract stuff, that’s when I thought ‘they can improve a little bit, but we’re not getting to the territory where it’s really gonna help.’ That’s when I made the decision.”

Work in lieu of fandom

“Kevin (you were) saying that this is a job. At the end of the day, it’s a job. It’s not easy, you guys know this. And we talked about Jim Gardner – every night Jim Gardner would say what the big story on Action News was. What if there was no big story, do they not say ‘the big story on Action News?‘ No, they have to have a big story. Every day, whether it’s us pounding the Eagles into the friggin’ pavement, or whatever the hell we’re gonna talk about, we have to talk about something, we have to talk about something that’s compelling enough for people to listen to. So yeah, I don’t feel like talking about shit five days a week. There’s a lot of days I don’t feel like talking about anything, but that’s the job.”

The conspiracy theory that Jon’s wife pressed him to leave

“Let me just set the picture – my wife, who had a great career before she stopped working to take care of the kids, hasn’t worked since before COVID. We don’t have a ton of savings, we have three young kids, and I’m diabetic, by the way, which is very expensive to take care of. So if anybody out there thinks I left the job because I was being pressured by my wife, (that makes no sense), because now we both have no jobs and not a lot of income, and no health insurance. I had to tell my wife on a lot of occasions, ‘you trust me, right?‘ I left the Fanatic with no assurances and ended up going to WIP and I said ‘trust me.’ She trusted me and it worked out well, and this will work out too. But the idea that she was pressuring me to quit, so she could go back to work, and we could make far less money, is silly.”

More on negotiations

In video form:

Marks and Reese not being a hot take show

“I don’t think I’d be saying anything out of line to mention that when I came to WIP and Spike (Eskin) rebuilt the station, it was a lot of First Take, Skip Bayless stuff. And I think for the station to re-establish itself, that was important. You can’t argue with the success that it had. But from there, after Spike left, I don’t always want to have contrary opinions to Ike or Jack, because I think people see right through it and it becomes predictable. So if something happens, I don’t want to do the ‘Eagles suck, what do you think? 215-592-9494, Ike what do you think?’ ‘Oh yeah, the Eagles are great,’ then I disagree and the Eagles suck, and here’s why. I don’t want to do that everyday, and I don’t think people want to hear that every day. You have to have opinions, and that’s important, but it can’t be predictable… I feel like we really evolved from that, and maybe it contributed to the success of the show.”

 

There’s a lot more to unpack from the interview, which runs about 45 minutes. Give it a listen when you find some time: