WIP adds ex-Eagles Pro Bowler Hugh Douglas as part of Angelo Cataldi’s retirement
WIP's new lineup will have former Eagles players co-hosting for 12 straight hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
94.1 WIP is already the home of Eagles games, so it seems fitting it’s filling its lineup with former Birds players.
The latest addition is former Eagles Pro Bowler Hugh Douglas, who will cohost the station’s new midday show alongside current evening host Joe Giglio.
“The best years of my NFL career were in Philly, and I cut my teeth in broadcasting at WIP,” Douglas said in a statement. “I’m so excited to be back and hosting middays with Joe Giglio. I’m coming home!”
The duo will take over a week after the Eagles’ season ends, when morning show host Angelo Cataldi retires and is replaced by WIP’s current midday show, which features Joe DeCamara and former Eagles running back Jon Ritchie. Rhea Hughes, Cataldi’s longtime cohost, will remain on the morning show, as will longtime producer, Joe Weachter, who will be joined by midday producer James Seltzer.
It remains unclear where Al Morganti, Cataldi’s other longtime cohost, will land in the station’s lineup, though he won’t be part of the new morning show. Morganti is also an analyst for NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Flyers coverage, where he appears with new studio host Ashlyn Sullivan and former Flyers winger Scott Hartnell.
Remaining in afternoon drive time on WIP will be Jon Marks and former Eagles linebacker Ike Reese. Marks had been hosting without a contract, but told The Inquirer he signed a new one-year deal with the station that will keep him on air through November.
So for 12 hours a day, not a block will go by on WIP without sports fans hearing from a former Birds player.
WIP said it would be conducting a search for its new evening host.
Douglas, who joined the Eagles Hall of Fame last month, spent six of his 10 NFL seasons with the Birds. After retiring, he spent time with both Fox 29 and WIP, where he hosted weekend shows with Rob Charry.
In 2011, ESPN hired Douglas as a studio analyst, but fired him two years later over an altercation at a party with Michael Smith, who was his cohost on a show called Numbers Don’t Lie. He resurrected his media career in Atlanta, where a gig working nights at 92.9 The Game in 2014 evolved into him cohosting the station’s morning show alongside John Fricke.
“When I first got here, people were like, ‘Go back to Philly,’ you know, ‘You got fired from ESPN.’ They were trying to say everything to hurt my feelings,” Douglas told The Inquirer in 2018. “I used to tell them all the time, ‘I cut my teeth in Philly doing Philadelphia radio. There’s nothing that any of you people down here can say to me that’s going to hurt my feelings.’ Seriously. If that’s the best you’ve got? … After we got past that, everything was fine.”
Douglas was also arrested in 2013 for allegedly beating and choking a former girlfriend at a hotel on Hartford, Conn. Douglas denied the allegations, but pleaded no contest and was sentenced to two years in a probation-like program. He also settled a lawsuit filed by the same woman.
Giglio, who broke into radio after winning a contest at sister station WFAN in New York City in 2012, has been with WIP since 2013 and has always pulled in solid ratings during his stint as the station’s evening host.
“Joe Giglio has been a staple in evenings for WIP, and we’re very excited to see his role expand in middays” WIP program director Rod Lakin said in a statement.
While WIP has easily topped 97.5 The Fanatic in the ratings, the new lineup comes at a difficult time for station owner Audacy, which like many media companies is facing a soft advertising market.
In August, the company fell out of compliance with New York Stock Exchange rules after its stock price dropped below $1 a share (it opened Wednesday at $0.23 a share). The company laid off nearly 5% of its almost 5,000 employees just a few weeks later, and has lost $1 billion since 2018.
Audacy had a rough third quarter, missing Wall Street estimates and reporting a net loss of $140.98 million, down from $4.76 million during the third quarter of 2021. It has until January to get its stock price back up before it is delisted.