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RADIO WARS: Jon Marks Returning to 97.5 the Fanatic After Mike Missanelli’s Summer Exit

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Sep 25th, 2025 · 4:07 PM EDT

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If we had a nickel for every recent Fanatic blockbuster, we’d have 10 cents.

First, it was Mike Missanelli as a shock layoff back in August, now it’s former Missanelli producer Jon Marks returning to the Fanatic to host the midday shift that Mike was anchoring alongside Bill Colarulo and Ray Dunne.

The news was made official at 4:30 on 97.5’s afternoon show, Unfiltered, which had been teasing a “special guest.”

It seemed obvious a month ago that Marks was a front runner for the job. He had just announced his PHLY departure and expressed interest in working middays as one of the reasons for leaving the successful WIP afternoon show with Ike Reese and Jack Fritz. Now he comes back to the station where he launched his radio career 20 years ago, before departing for WIP back in 2016.

Sources say the original plan was to have Marks and Missanelli work together on middays, then the opportunity would arise for Marks to take over when Missanelli’s contract expired at the end of football season. Essentially they’d reunite for six months, then Missanelli would retire and pass the show to Marks. Instead, Beasley went through another round of cost trimming and Missanelli was let go prematurely, leaving a seven-week gap in which Dunne sat in the anchor chair instead.

Now to the question you’re probably asking:

Why did it take so long to bring in Marks after Missanelli’s departure? We were told it had something to do with unsigned severance documentation between Beasley and Missanelli, though why that would preclude Marks from getting started, no one seems to know. Marks was lined up for the midday slot since before Missanelli’s exit, yet will not begin until almost 25% of the Eagles schedule has already been played, which is a missed opportunity regardless of why it happened. Football season is the most important in sports talk radio, rights holder or not.

We’re also hearing that Amy Fadool will continue to appear on middays while Dunne moves back to the role he held previously. Marks will start on Monday. There may be some moments when the new show digs into the Fanatic annals, perhaps bringing in a guest host here and there to sit in on the show. I’m sure Marks will elaborate more on the show’s programming outlook when he gets started.

Fanatic weekday lineup moving forward:

• 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. – John Kincade, Andrew Salciunas, Connor Thomas
• 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. – Jon Marks, Ray Dunne
• 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. – Bill Colarulo, Ricky Bo, Sylvana Kelleher

EDIT – updating with some notes from Jon’s appearance on Unfiltered:

• Jon says he “has a lot of energy and is broke” after working part time for the last two years.
• Middays with Marks is the name of the show.
• Colarulo talked about his philosophy of eschewing rage bait, and suggested that Marks is similar in that regard, which is probably true. Even when Marks was at WIP, that wasn’t a hot take afternoon show. It was heavily Eagles and Phillies but had a lot of levity with Ike Reese and Jack Fritz.
• Marks did give Mike Missanelli a shout out.
• He says this will be “the most genuine product of me,” and it’s not going to be “fake take radio.” He wants to “a fun show” that “talks about everything.”
• Marks says there had been a lot of conversation about coming back to the Fanatic ever since he left WIP.