Radio wars heat up

In any industry, competition is healthy.

When WPEN was floundering, WIP was stale. The result was bad radio on both stations for the listener.

Greater Media has been much more aggressive under the stewardship of veteran program director Matt Nahagian and has finally made inroads in the Philly sports radio war, nipping at the heels of 610's "guy radio" that has turned into a stereotype of what the national media thinks a Philly sports fan is.

According to the Daily News, in its first full ratings month since 950 went to FM as 97.5 "The Fanatic," Arbitron ranked the station  seventh among its target of men ages 18 to 49, with an estimated weekly audience of 231,700, up from 131,000 in September.

WIP came back and claimed it was No. 1 among its own target,  men ages 25 to 54, for the fourth consecutive month.

"We don't even notice that they're there. It's like comparing the Reading Phillies with the Philadelphia Phillies, Andy Bloom, operations manager at WIP, told Michael Klein.

That set off 97.5's star, afternoon man Mike Missanelli, who claimed on his show yesterday that WIP tried to hire him back to replace is nemesis, Howard  Eskin.

"We have had no formal conversations with Mike. However, we are friends and I do speak to him from time to time," Marc Rayfield, market manager for CBS Radio, which owns WIP, told Dan Gross.

"I can categorically deny that any sort of offer was made to Mike," said WIP program director Andy Bloom. "He's trying desperately to create a story,"

Missanelli, who once teamed with Eskin on WIP and dislikes him intensely, called the person who made the offer at WIP "a weasel."

Both Missanelli, who was fired at WIP for punching a producer, and Eskin are playing the game right. As the underdog, Missanelli often points out correctly that Eskin, a staple on the Philadelphia sports scene, has been mailing in for years. Eskin, meanwhile, refuses to even acknowledge the other side. "What kind of music does 97.5 play?" Eskin told the Daily news. "Seriously, WIP is the sports-talk leader in Philadelphia. We just focus on what we do to create exciting radio for our listeners."

While the back-and-fourth is fun for people like me, it would be much more enticing for the listeners if each station concentrated of improving the product.

WIP remains as stale as ever, using the exact same formula for the last 20 years, while The Fanatic has turned into rah-rah radio. ESPN analyst Cris Carter even called out Missanelli out yesterday asking him if he was "just a guy doing a radio show" or a "fan."

Philadelphia needs a place to get sharp, incisive, educated sports talk and both stations are failing miserably right now.