Chris Russo Talks About Francesa on Stern Show
By Mike Silva ~ February 12th, 2009. Filed under: Sports Media Commentary.
Although I am a subscriber to XM Radio, I do not get the Howard Stern show. Nothing against Stern, I enjoyed him back in his K-Rock days, but I haven’t gotten around to expanding my package. Yesterday Chris Russo sat down with the “King of All Media” to talk about his old partner.
The site MarksFriggens does a great job of providing a transcript for each show. Below is a brief excerpt of some of the topics discussed by Chris with Howard Stern. I will comment on the Francesa response later today.
Howard asked Chris how he thinks his old partner Mike Francesa is doing with his show. Chris said it depends on who you ask. He said that the ratings seem the same over there at WFAN. Chris said that he’s spoken to some people who say that they’re getting murdered in some areas. Chris said that he really doesn’t know the answer to all of that and he has no reason to lie about that.
Howard asked Chris if Mike needed him or if Chris needed Mike. Howard said it seems that Mike is the loser in all of this. Howard said that he should have the ratings there and asked Gary to get them for him. Howard asked Chris if he’s heard Mike’s show at all. Chris said that he hasn’t watched or listened to him at all.
Gary had some ratings information for them. He read that stuff to them and WFAN had fallen for the third consecutive month. They were down overall. Gary said that the ratings dropped for the whole station but Gary was still reading to see where their old show was at. Gary said that they didn’t have specific afternoon ratings.
Howard told Gary to tell Tim to get him the full ratings report or people would be fired. Chris asked Howard why he’s so wrapped up with this. Howard said that he always looks into this stuff with people who took over for him.
Howard said that there was some other drama in Chris’ life to talk about too. He said that he’s heard that Chris has spoken to Mike twice since he left. Chris spoke to him at an event that they were both at and they just talked about sports, the old station and all of that. Things were fine then. Chris said that he just saw Mike two Monday’s ago at the Super Bowl and it was kind of awkward. He said that they were both at an event to cover and they were in more of a competition at that time. He said that was awkward for him.
Howard said he heard that Chris went down to the Super Bowl and they went to this Radio Row where they wait to interview people. Chris said that was true. Howard said that Mike decided that he didn’t have to be at Radio Row and set up a hotel room for himself to ace out the other reporters. Howard said he heard that no one showed up at Mike’s hotel room. Chris said that it was a hotel lobby, not a hotel room, but that was basically true.
Howard said that Mike thought he was so big that he could get people to do his show. Chris said that the guys would have to walk 8 blocks to do the interviews and they’re just not going to do that. He said that Mike only had 26 guests that week and Chris had 56.
Howard said that Mike was friendly with Bill Parcells and he didn’t give Mike an interview. Chris asked how he knows that. Howard said that he follows everything that goes on there and that’s how he finds this stuff out. Howard said that’s great that Mike’s best buddy Bill Parcells didn’t do an interview with his best buddy. Chris said that was kind of odd. Chris said that he only did two shows and both of them were on SIRIUS.
Howard said that he’s heard that Mike is really upset about this whole thing. Chris said he hasn’t heard that. Howard may have been making that up.
Gary said that he heard that Chris and Mike got into a fight over Parcells years ago and they didn’t speak to each other for weeks. Chris said that he got into it with Parcells too but they’ve made up. Chris said that he was very vocal with some of the stuff that Parcells did and Mike took Parcells’ side. Chris said that it was a tricky situation.
Howard said that it’s great that Parcells did that interview even after all of that stuff. Chris said that he had a bunch of great guests on that Friday before the Super Bowl. He also got to interview Bruce Springsteen the day before.
