MSG bidding to wrest Mike Francesa from YES
MSG is making an aggressive bid to succeed YES as the TV simulcast home of "Mike'd Up," formerly known as "Mike and the Mad Dog," a person familiar with the process said.
WFAN's afternoon show has been simulcast on YES since the network launched in 2002.
YES' contract to carry the show expires at the end of this year, but it had the right to cancel the simulcasts after the breakup of Chris Russo and Mike Francesa last month. It decided to keep the show through the end of December, as planned.
What about after that, though? YES has a right to match MSG's offer, but its level of interest in doing so is not clear.
The show provides many hours of programming, but Yankees president Randy Levine long has been interested in severing the relationship, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. With the contract ending and a new stadium opening, the Yankees and YES might conclude this is the time to part ways.
YES is believed to be considering launching its own talk show that would originate from the new Yankee Stadium.
Will YES seek to match MSG's offer? "We don’t publicly discuss strategy,'' spokesman Eric Handler said.
Is YES formulating its own show? "We are always exploring new programming opportunities, as evidenced by the four new programming series we launched in the first seven months of 2008 (The Joe Girardi Show, YESterdays, SportsLife NYC and Forbes Sports Money)," Handler said.
(MSG and Newsday both are owned by Cablevision.)
E-mail
Facebook
Digg
Delicious
Comments (10)
From what i heard, the show doesnt do well in the ratings, especially for the amount of money they get (Russo said he got paid well on M. Kays radio show yesterday)...but MSG could use any programming they can get right now, since they 're virtually non-existent compared to YES and SNY.
neil.fooch the pooch with mike,priceless.any thought?
Given the time of day and what other shows do against it on SNY or MSG, the ratings are pretty respectable, I think.
Fooch and the Fatman?
Francesa and Fran (Healy)
The Knicks PR stylings and BlackBerry expertise of poor Jonathan Supranowitz?
Or since Cablevision likes its employees to work multi jobs for same pay ... Mike and the WatchDog!
WHO WOULD WATCH MSG ANYWAY. KNICKS STINK, RANGERS ARE SO, SO AND WITHOUT RUSSO, MIKE FRANCESA IS BORING. SO TAKE HIM, PROBLEM IS IF THE YANKEES KEEP LOSING, WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAVE MANY MORE YANKEE CLASSICS TO WATCH, UNLESS THEY START BRINGING IN TAPES FROM THE 20'S, 30'S 40'S AND 50'S?
Good God if YES formulates a talk show as horrific as the ones SNY seem to have, why bother? Right now wouldn't it make more sense for YES just to simulcast Kay's show? OTOH maybe they simulcast Russo's show since nobody in New York would hear it any other way.
Sandy,
I think the problem with that is Kay does his sradio how from the road a lot because he calls the games, which would make it difficult for them to simulcast.
Now if only they would take him off WFAN...
It's far more likely that YES replaces FOTF with Michael Kay. What better way to mum his radio persona that is far more critical of the Yankees and constant flirting with the traffic reporters.
Best:
Have they called you about our new show? What's the holdup?