NYC Radio: WFAN Declined Carton Interview Offer

Craig Carton offered to go home for his first public comments since being sentenced to 3½ years in jail Friday for running a Ponzi scheme, but his former WFAN co-host declined, according to The NY Post.

While Carton was a guest on ESPN New York’s “Michael Kay Show” Monday (read story here), WFAN had a chance to bring him on first before Boomer Esiason turned him down.

“People are like, ‘He’s backstabbing WFAN by doing that.’ No, he’s not,” Esiason said Monday morning on his show, now co-hosted by Greg Giannotti. “He actually wanted to come on our show and I didn’t want that because I sit here with a new partner now and I don’t necessarily know that that would have been the right thing to do. And I don’t mean to get you into this and get you awkward and make you weird and all that other stuff.

“At the end of the day, [WFAN vice president of programming Mark] Chernoff and I sat down, and I didn’t feel comfortable with it. I really didn’t. I don’t know necessarily if they talked to Mike [Francesa] about it, or whoever. I know that he went on with Sid and Bernie [on WABC Radio].

Esiason and Carton spent almost 10 years together doing their show — which Carton’s sentencing judge said she listened to — before Carton was arrested in 2017 for the ticket-brokering scam to repay his gambling debts.

Before Carton learned his fate Friday, Esiason said he and other WFAN employees sent letters of support trying to get the sentence reduced. That may have made a potential grilling awkward on Monday, an opportunity Kay will now get on ESPN instead.