John “Stagotts” Weiner appears to have turned down a one-time dream job to run WFAN.
As Spike Eskin was set to leave his position as program director at the iconic sports talk radio station to become afternoon drive host at WIP in his hometown of Philadelphia, the search for his replacement ultimately turned to Dan Le. We reached Weiner, a longtime co-host on Batard’s show.
Weiner grew up on Long Island and previously built 790 The Ticket in Miami. In addition to Le Batard’s show, the station once hosted a show hosted by current Cubs play-by-play announcer John “Boog” Ciambi, as well as an ESPN play-by-play show. Jorge Sedano, theater broadcaster and host of Los Angeles Afternoon Drive;
neil best of newsday I was making an “educated guess” Weiner had reportedly been offered a job at WFAN, and Weiner addressed the rumors on Le Batard’s Meadowlark Media show on Thursday.
“I’ve said it many times, but I got into this industry because of WFAN,” Wiener said, as reported on Awful Annunciation.
“I always imagined that if I was going to go there at this stage in my career, it would be as a host. That was not a position that was offered to me. I was going to be the program director at WFAN — they had two, but I would have been the third one — and I was going to be the program director at WFAN. Ta. [Dan] And I talked about it. I thought about it a lot. Times have changed in our industry as well.the job [previously] They were paid much more than they are now. ”
Le Batard and Weiner have been co-hosts for 20 years as of September.
Mr. Weiner went on to list the reasons why he felt obligated to express his gratitude to Audacity, WFAN’s parent company.
“I decided to stay. [on Le Batard’s show], mainly due to two things. Number one: Boomer Esiason refused to take a pay cut,” he joked.
“The other reason I didn’t accept it is because I sit down and think about this and weigh the good and the bad. My wife loves it here and she loves her life here. But , Dan, at the end of the day, Boomer didn’t take a pay cut and I didn’t have the confidence to not lay off the people who had the jobs I wanted at WFAN. That and state income taxes. ”
They clarified that this was “not just a little bit.”
Another aspect of Weiner’s decision-making is that he has unlimited vacation time at Meadowlark Media, which he takes full advantage of. Additionally, the WFAN program director’s job is demanding.
“I really, really wanted to do it,” Wiener said. “But in the end there were too many hurdles to clear and we couldn’t clear them all.”
He jokingly, but perhaps truthfully, admitted that he would have taken the job if WFAN had increased his offer by an additional $500,000.
