A lot of people have been asking about Mike Missanelli. Is he going back to the Fanatic or not?

At last check, Mikey Miss and program director Scott Masteller both confirmed that talks had taken place. That was three months ago, and there’s been nothing since.

However, with last week’s surprise departure of Vice President and Market Manager Joe Bell, and the promotion of Paul Blake, is a Mike return back in play? He said this at the end of a recent podcast:

“One other thing that people have been asking me about. My old station fired their general manager. This was the same general manager that decided not to renew my contract two years ago, almost to the day. He’s gone. I don’t  know what’s going to happen at that station. I will tell you this, however – that station, in the last couple of months, has made me an offer. I can’t tell you much more about that, because if the offer was satisfactory to me, I probably would be on the radio. But at this point, it is not. So with new management coming in, I have no idea what will happen here. I just want to say this – I am committed to this podcast and I am going to do this podcast for a really long period of time and the other stuff really doesn’t matter to me. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t, I’m good, because I like spending time with you here on the podcast.”

Okay, so Mike was not satisfied with the offer they presented to him. I don’t have any firsthand information on his situation specifically, nothing on the record, but one of the things I’ve heard from a few people is that 97.5 management wasn’t thrilled with the way the Anthony Gargano situation played out. They wound up settling with All City out of court, and the non-compete language in Cuz’s contract was more or less enforced, but there’s been some wariness on the Beasley side because they don’t want a repeat situation. Taking that into consideration, it makes me think that this Missanelli thing got held up not because of money, but something related to the Cuz fiasco.

If you’ve been listening to the Fanatic, you’ve probably noticed that they’re trying various co hosts in the midday slot with Bob Cooney. Bill Colarulo has co-hosted that show. Amy Fadool as well. It’s pretty obvious that they’re going to hire someone at some point, but we’re currently experiencing a Mikey Miss stasis. A sports radio abeyance, if you will. If you don’t know what “abeyance” means, then GOOGLE ME.


The other questions that require answering are this:

  1. Why was Joe Bell let go a few months before he was set to retire? (I heard a juicy rumor on this one that I’m trying to confirm)
  2. Was the decision to reconnect with Mike Miss Bell’s idea, or Masteller’s?
  3. Does Paul Blake like Missanelli? Do both parties come back to the table now that Bell is out of the picture?

As a quick aside, the title of “cluster manager” is funny to me. You generally refer to a group of radio stations in a single market as a “cluster,” but you’re begging people to make a “clusterfuck” joke here. The alternate headline reads: “Paul Blake elevated to Philadelphia clusterfuck manager.”

Pithy jokes aside, this is intriguing. We haven’t had a decent RADIO WARS story in some time. Is Mike coming back? And why was Joe Bell let go? There’s definitely more to the story.

play the song!