WIP to replace Angelo Cataldi with Joe DeCamara and Jon Ritchie
Cataldi, who has been with the station more than three decades, is retiring after the Eagles season ends.
We finally know who will be replacing longtime 94.1 WIP host Angelo Cataldi when he retires after the Eagles’ season ends.
Joe DeCamara and former Eagles fullback Jon Ritchie — who currently host WIP’s midday show — will replace Cataldi when he hangs up his microphone in early 2023. Rhea Hughes, Cataldi’s longtime cohost, will remain on the new morning show. Joining the crew will be midday producer James Seltzer, who will work alongside the morning show’s longtime producer, Joe Weachter.
Cataldi, 71, announced the news Thursday morning, squeezing it in a day before the Phillies take on the Houston Astros in the World Series on Friday.
“We are going to assemble, I think, what’s going to be a remarkable team,” DeCamara said. “I’ve got very lofty expectations.”
“Just do one favor for me — make the last half hour of your shows excellent, because before that I’ll be sleeping,” Cataldi joked.
Cataldi’s other longtime cohost, Al Morganti, who has been with the station since the early 1990s, won’t be part of the new morning show but will remain at the station in an unspecified role. Morganti is also a Flyers analyst for NBC Sports Philadelphia and appears on the network’s pre- and postgame shows.
Ava Graham — the daughter of former WIP overnight host Big Daddy Graham, who died in September 2021 — is shifting from her on-the-air role to become the assistant brand manager at WIP.
DeCamara and Ritchie — who spent the final two years of his seven-season NFL career with the Eagles — have cohosted WIP’s midday show since October 2016, when the station moved former Eagles linebacker Ike Reese to the afternoon and said goodbye to NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Michael Barkann.
Prior to joining WIP, DeCamara spent 11 years at 97.5 The Fanatic and hosted nationally-syndicated shows for ESPN Radio. Ritchie also worked for ESPN as an analyst, and cohosted the Artie Lang Show on DirecTV from 2013 to 2014.
It’s the first major scheduling move made under program director Rod Lakin, who took over at WIP little more than a year ago after Spike Eskin took a job running sister station WFAN in New York City.
The announcement ends speculation that has run rampant across sports media circles in Philadelphia. At one point, rumors surfaced on Crossing Broad that Mike Golic, the former cohost of ESPN Radio’s syndicated morning show Mike & Mike, might take the role alongside his son, Mike Golic Jr. But both ruled out the gig on social media back in June.
Another name mentioned as a possibility was Mike Missanelli, the longtime afternoon host on 97.5 The Fanatic who left the station abruptly back in May. Missanelli had two stints at WIP — from 1992 to 2003 and from July 2005 to March 2006, when he was fired after punching a producer during a live broadcast. But the station never reached out to the veteran sports talker, according to sources.
As for the midday show, WIP hasn’t made any decisions about who will take over, and said a new show would be announced “in the coming months.” Joe Giglio, who currently hosts weeknights between 6 and 10 p.m. (when the Phillies aren’t playing), would seem like an obvious choice. Giglio has been with WIP since 2013, and has always pulled in solid ratings during his evening shift.
Philadelphia Business Journal’s Jeff Blumenthal reported that Audacy, WIP’s parent company, has reached out to former Eagles defensive end Hugh Douglas about returning to the station. Douglas, who worked for WIP in the late 2000s, currently cohosts the morning show on 92.9 The Game in Atlanta.
Cataldi’s tenure with WIP dates back to 1989, and the show remains a ratings juggernaut on Philadelphia radio. Cataldi has also managed to keep things fresh over the years with a series of rotating cohosts, including former Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., Flyers announcer and former player Keith Jones, former offensive lineman Ross Tucker, and Inquirer columnist Marcus Hayes.
The move comes at a difficult time for Audacy, which like a lot of 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 closed yesterday at $0.36 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 will report its third-quarter revenue for 2022 before the market opens on Nov. 8.