Feature: Media: Game On

At The Fanatic, the game plan is reversed. Missanelli is the station’s only big-name host; the rest of its stable is stocked with established guys like ex-WIP vet Tony Bruno and NBC 10’s Vai Sikahema, or up-and-comers like 33-year-olds Jon Marks and John Gonzalez. As Missanelli’s producer and de facto sidekick, Marks has developed into a sharp, funny on-air presence. In Gonzalez, the Inquirer sports columnist, The Fanatic has a self-deprecating motormouth. Take Cataldi, throw him in the Hot Tub Time Machine, wind the clock back 25 years, and wham! You have Gonzo. The Fanatic’s strategy is a little like the Tampa-2 defense, though — impressive at first, but study it long enough and you’ll find some holes.

The station’s anchor AM drive-time program, Mike & Mike in the Morning, is broadcast from Connecticut and is required programming for the station. While that saves The Fanatic from dumping beauçoup cash into a local morning-show team, Mike & Mike still lags way behind ratings for Cataldi’s competing show over on ’IP. Because when Philadelphia sports fans are talking about Villanova’s early exit from the NCAA tourney, the Mikes are talking about national stories, like LeBron James’s free agency. “It’s pretty tough to think that you’re going to beat WIP’s morning show, because it’s so well established,” Missanelli admits. “And you’re not going to beat it with a national show.”

Something else becomes strangely evident inside The Fanatic studio at noon, when Gonzo and Vai hand off to long-suffering 950 AM alum Harry Mayes and his partner, Tony Bruno. While Bruno bemoans the city’s post-winter potholes and calls his and Mayes’s show “a real Philly show for real Philadelphia sports fans,” he isn’t actually here — he’s speaking from his home studio in Los Angeles. Apart from six contractually obligated weeks spent in the Delaware Valley, Bruno’s only presence at the station is his voice booming through a monitor. “I don’t think we try to deceive the audience,” Bruno says. “I think the days are over when you say, ‘How can you do a Philly show when you’re not in Philly?’”

WIP is betting against that theory. You may think Eskin is a miserable SOB who sucks up to the sources who feed his ego and denigrates everyone else. But when you’re at the Linc for an Eagles game, there he is, strutting the sidelines in his fur coat — and running for cover when fans start chucking snowballs. As Eskin’s ratings slip, he’s not hiding. He’s front and center, enduring the ridicule and venom with a smile, because it means the fans haven’t forgotten him.