Anthony Gargano is doing his first PHLY show on Thursday morning, his first local media foray after a settlement was reached in the breach of contract lawsuit filed by former employer Beasley Media. Cuz, reading from a piece of paper, said the following about 97.5 the Fanatic and his new gig:

“I left the Fanatic for two reasons, in full disclosure, you guys know I have a family, my wife, my two boys, and I got scared, right? I need runway. We know digital is the future, and truthfully, the state of media companies is a little scary. The tech has changed the landscape so drastically, resources and revenue are scarce. When I first started years ago, cause I’m now old, I started in newspapers and I worked in New York, and I remember traveling the world covering stories. Our budget at the New York Post was ridiculous, and I would go to Monday games and Sunday games and I did a college game of the week and I wrote a 5,000 word piece, and I did NCAA tournaments and World Series and NBA finals, Stanley Cups and all of that stuff, and I loved every minute of it. That changed. It’s just not fiscally possible anymore. Printing plants and (radio) signals, they’re a tough haul. The internet now is boundless, and listen, I want to make this clear, and this is true – I’m rooting for radio. I’m rooting for newspapers, rooting for television. I have countless relationships, close people, people I love, they work at WIP, they work at 97.5 the Fanatic, they work at the Inquirer, they work at Comcast SportsNet, they work at FOX 29, all the local stations, NBC 10, ABC, Channel 6, I love these people right? I want them to succeed, I want them to thrive, I want them to feed their families. Here at PHLY, we’re meant to be an addition to the marketplace, we’re here just to fill a niche that is sort of a hybrid network. The other reason I left is I’m a little goofy, and I like to satisfy my creative mind, so if I want to talk to Baldy, or Legs, or bless his heart, Charlie (Manuel, I think) for 45 minutes, I can do that. I can go to Nick Sirianni’s office, sit down, do a profile. I can drink wine with Larry Andersen, go hang with Larry Bowa, flip on a camera and run it during a show. It’s what makes it creative. We can do whatever we want. We’re gonna do all kinds of stuff and it’s gonna be fun. Every day (this show) is going to be 9 to 11, but if we want to go to noon, we can do it.

The freedom honestly is liberating and truthfully, a bit daunting, but it’s gonna be a blast. And just know that this whole thing is a work in progress. It’s an experiment. There’s going to be many hiccups, many glitches, so be careful of judging us right away because we’re working through this thing, but we’re gonna grow like you. One of the features we’re gonna be adding soon is phone calls. There might be video component to it, but I’ll get to communicate with you guys, but it’s something I fell in love with.”

Cuz went on to introduce the crew and provide a little bit more background, but this sounded like a PHLY introduction that would have originally been done back in September, when the site launched. Gargano was the key piece, the main talent who also built the staff, so the lawsuit pushed his debut back 6 full months. Now they’re operating in full capacity, the way it was initially planned.

Is Gargano’s concern about radio legitimate? Yeah, of course. 97.5 the Fanatic hasn’t exactly been a well-oiled machine lately, Audacy just went bankrupt, and the future of terrestrial is a little bit murky. Ad revenue is down and the glory days are in the past, with Bruce Springsteen. That said, Cuz was making $300,000 (plus bonuses and incentives) to do his midday show, so walking away from that is a pretty significant gamble. Or maybe “jeopardizing that” is the better phrase, because Cuz was interested in working at both PHLY and the Fanatic, and Beasley said no, which precipitated the lawsuit and led to the chain of events that resulted in him having to sit out for half a year.

The other portion of that statement, about creativity and whatnot, there’s certainly truth to that. WIP was the Eagles and Phillies rights holder, so obviously Cuz at 97.5 the Fanatic wasn’t going to get any kind of preferred access with those teams. The main gig was sitting there for four hours every day, talking into a microphone, but that didn’t preclude him from exploring those other things via the Fanatic YouTube channel, or website, or podcast feed, or whatever. There were avenues to do those extra things, but PHLY is better suited and more focused on that multi-platform digital stuff.

The show is live right now if you want to pick it up: