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Friday, February 2, 2024

Philly Radio: The Fanatic To Target Younger Demos


The new program director at Beasley Media's WPEN  97.5 the Fanatic believes Philadelphia is definitely large enough to support two sports talk radio stations.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Masteller is the new program director at 97.5 The Fanatic and is burdened with the seemingly insurmountable task of competing with local behemoth 94.1 WIP. Not only is WIP a legacy station that carries both Eagles and Phillies games, they easily outpace The Fanatic in every time slot in ratings and are able to regularly feature interviews with local stars like Jason Kelce and callers like Bryce Harper.


So how can The Fanatic compete?

“We have to grow our audience, and it takes some time to do that. So every time people tune in, we need to make sure they get what we’re looking for,” Masteller told The Inquirer, noting the station is attempting to reach a younger demographic and hit on topics in a different way than the folks at WIP.

“They’ve got the Eagles, they’ve got the Phillies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t cover them,” Masteller said. “We just have to be smart about how we go about that process.”

Masteller served as the program director of Baltimore’s WBAL News Radio for seven years. Prior to that, he worked for more than a decade for ESPN Radio, including a stint as the network’s senior director of content. For several years, he ran the ESPN Radio-owned-and-operated station in Dallas, which, like The Fanatic, had to go up against a popular competitor in The Ticket.

“I remember the first couple of weeks I was on the job [in Dallas] there were people saying, ‘Scott, we need to be more like The Ticket.’ And I’m like, ‘No, if we do that, we’ll get killed,’” Masteller said. “So we [at The Fanatic] have to find our lane and make sure we’re in a position to be somewhat different, but also have really great content that people want to hear every day.”

Hopefully, Masteller and The Fanatic have better luck than ESPN did; their Dallas station switched to Christian talk in 2022, years after Masteller left.

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