NYC Radio: Mike Francesa Believes in the Power of Radio

Mike Francesa came out of retirement and went back to WFAN 660 AM / 101.9 FM in New York in April. He said then that his primary reason for un-retiring was the development of an app that would feature all of his content. That app, “Mike’s On,” is now available.

The price for a subscription is $8.99 per month, or $98.99 for an annual subscription. The app and coinciding website will feature exclusive unique content for a price that is quite expensive compared with similar products, according to Forbes.

For example, Sirius/XM’s app is $13 per month. That features Howard Stern’s library, play-by-play of all major U.S. sports leagues, and Francesa’s old partner Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo.

Netflix and Hulu each start their pricing at $7.99/month. Amazon Prime charges $12.99/month (and includes free shipping on other products).

The NYPost reported that Francesa alone decided on the price; CAA Sports and Entercom, which are partners on the project, did not weigh in.

The app will indeed have exclusive content. Francesa will host an NFL show on Sundays from a studio at his house exclusively on the app. He hosted a Sunday morning NFL show for nearly 30 years on WFAN but now will do so only on the app.

Mike Francesa: Celeste Sloman for The New York Times

Meanwhile, in an interview with NY Time Magazine, Francesa talked his preference for radio rather than TV.

➤You left behind a TV career to do radio. What potential did you see in radio back then? What radio does more than any other medium is it allows you to really get close to your audience. When you do TV, they acknowledge you, they nod their head. But when you do radio, they feel like they know everything about you. They feel like they’re your best friend — or maybe your worst enemy, if they don’t like you.

➤Do you have any theories about why that is? A couple. They hear every emotion that you have. They hear the days you’re really happy, the days you’re really angry, the day you might be without a care in the world. But more than that, they can take you everywhere. They’re in the car with you — on the way to work, on the way home. They can take you with them when they’re lying there ready to go to sleep, when they get up in the morning, when they go to the beach, when they’re on the couch. When I’m talking, I think of myself talking to each person. I envision people on the highway. I envision people in their cars. I envision how people are listening. I envision a lot of them, but I envision them one at a time.

➤Which did you like doing better? Do you like the show by yourself, or did you like doing it with the Mad Dog? “Mike and the Mad Dog” will probably be regarded forever as the No.1 sports talk show. I mean, I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t think “Mike and the Mad Dog” wasn’t a great show. I would say they’re very different shows. I would say I enjoyed doing both of them equally.

➤Politics occupies a much bigger place in sports media than it did back when you started, and in a much more upfront way. How do you feel about that? The reason every story is about President Trump is because it sells. Yes, you’ll turn on Fox News and they’ll be pro-Trump, and you’ll turn on MSNBC and they’ll be anti-Trump, but the reason it’s about Trump every minute of every day is because the audience is demanding it. I think everybody in media has to realize this might just be a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon, a comet across the sky, rather than something that is changed forever now.

➤Everyone has this nightmare where they can see the point in the future where they realize that they’re washed up. What does that moment look like for you? That moment’s never happening. Washed up to me would mean that my ratings were no longer good. If my ratings started to really fail, they wouldn’t have to say, “Go.” I’d go.