WIP’s Angelo Cataldi rules out one replacement; Dwyane Wade not returning to TNT

We still don’t know who will be replacing longtime 94.1 WIP morning show host Angelo Cataldi when he retires at the end of the Eagles’ season, but he ruled out one replacement.

On Tuesday’s show, Cataldi announced that offensive lineman-turned-broadcaster Ross Tucker would appear on the show Wednesday mornings from 7 to 9 a.m. during the NFL season. Cataldi has been taking off Wednesdays since earlier this year, and Ross will join longtime WIP Morning Show co-hosts Rhea Hughes and Al Morganti.

Cataldi also said Tucker nearly became his morning show replacement.

“It’s got to be five, six, maybe seven years ago, I’m already thinking about bailing out of this thing, and I realize, ‘You know who would be a great replacement? Ross Tucker.’ Funny, knowledgeable, strong-minded, brilliant,” Cataldi said. “So I went to management and said, ‘I really like Ross Tucker.’ And they said, ‘We do, too.’ And they entered into a conversation with him about replacing me.”

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Unfortunately, Tucker lives in Reading and wouldn’t be able to make the commute back and forth to Philadelphia five days a week.

“He loves his family,” Cataldi said dryly.

“It is accurate that I love my family, and you couldn’t understand that,” Tucker joked.

WIP has remained tight-lipped about who will ultimately replace Cataldi and what the makeup of the station’s morning show will be once he retires. Cataldi, who has hosted the show since 1989, said he plans to stay on the air through the end of the Eagles’ season.

“Now, if they’re bad this year, I’m done around Christmas,” Cataldi told Philadelphia sports reporters Kevin Cooney and Mike Kern on the Working the Beat podcast last month.

In recent months WIP hosts Joe DeCamara, Joe Giglio, and Jon Marks have all spent time guest-hosting the show. Jon Johnson has also filled in on Wednesdays, but he landed the overnight job held for two decades by Big Daddy Graham, who died last year.

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After briefly flirting with LIV Golf, Charles Barkley will be returning to TNT this NBA season. But one of his colleagues won’t be joining him.

Three-time NBA champion Dwyane Wade won’t be returning to TNT’s Tuesday night coverage of the NBA, according to network sources. The New York Post’s Andrew Marchand was first to report the move.

Wade’s departure was his decision, and is not related to ongoing cuts at parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, sources said.

Wade joined TNT in 2020 as a co-host of the network’s Tuesday edition of Inside the NBA, alongside Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, WNBA star Candace Parker, and Philadelphia native Adam Lefkoe. Wade was also featured during TNT’s coverage of the All-Star Game and the NBA Playoffs.

Once again this season, TNT will shift its Thursday night crew — Barkley, Shaq, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson — to Tuesday nights during the NFL season to avoid going head-to-head with Thursday Night Football, even though it will stream exclusively on Amazon’s Prime Video.

The Sixers will open their season on TNT against the Boston Celtics on Oct. 18. The network will also host the Sixers home opener two days later against the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 20.

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