WFAN Article in the Daily News today (6/29)

[devils950003]

Check out the WFAN article in the NY Daily News today. (Fri, 6/29) It's accompanied by a picture of Mike and Chris. Russo looks like he's posing for a freakin' mugshot.

[First Time Long Time]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertain...an_fave-1.html

[I Mean Gee Whiz Mikey]

that picture makes dog look like he is 10 and tank look like 10, 000lbs

good job outta you guys today

tank see ya in a few weeks

doggy lets hope with all the hours solo next week you dont say something that gets you fired

[Gun to your head]

Thanks for pointing out the article. Here is the text for posterity.

20 yrs. of being a 'FAN fave

By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, June 29th 2007, 4:00 AM

Twenty years ago, the idea of an all-sports station on the radio was as absurd as the idea of an all-food network on television.

"Everybody in the business thought we were nuts," Joel Hollander, who ran WFAN in the early days and became CEO of CBS Radio, recalled two years ago.

This weekend, in a nation where hundreds of all-sports stations have become a multimillion-dollar industry, WFAN (660 AM) celebrates two decades of the crazy idea that kicked it off.

WFAN will bring back many of the hosts who have cracked its microphones since July 1, 1987, and surround them with a blizzard of audio clips from great New York sports moments and WFAN's own voice.

"I don't want to say we're part of people's lives," says program director Mark Chernoff. "But in a way, I think we are. We're important to our listeners. We feel like a friend."

Like many successful stations, WFAN needed a little time to figure out exactly what those listeners wanted. Among the clips this weekend will be snippets of the "Minko Morning Zoo," an abortive experiment that lasted just a few weeks in 1988.

"John Minko's a great update man," says Chernoff. "He wasn't a morning man."

Fortunately, the station almost accidentally inherited another possibility: "Imus in the Morning." It looked odd on paper - a news-oriented comedy show on an otherwise all-sports station - but it turned out to be a fit, even as Imus for years ended his show with a recording that said, "This concludes the entertainment portion of your broadcast day."

Imus was fired in April, but he will still be heard for the anniversary, as Mike Francesa and Chris Russo host a four-hour highlights retrospective this morning from 6-10.

The weekend officially kicked off yesterday with the unveiling of the listener-voted top 20 stories in city sports since 1987.

That list sparked arguments while it was being compiled, such as whether the Yankees' 2004 playoff collapse should be on it.

In the end, it was, and the issue demonstrated a key role for WFAN: to serve as a forum on both good and bad.

In general, says Chernoff, the station uses the same principle as a top-40 music station.

"You play the hits," he says. "You have listeners tuning in and out all day, and they want to hear about the biggest story, whether it's the Yankees, the Giants or whatever."

Keeping it snappy is part of that mantra, and callers who understand this become part of the family, sometimes literally. Host Joe Benigno started as "Joe from Saddle River."

The weekend will include remembrances of several well-known callers who have passed on, including Vinny from Queens, John from Sandy Hook and Doris from Rego Park.

"This has always been a distinctly New York station," says Chernoff. "You couldn't pick up WFAN and put it anywhere else, because we're about this city. We're where you go to hear about New York sports."