Mike Missanelli accuses bosses of lying about exit from 97.5 The Fanatic

Mike Missanelli isn’t thrilled about his exit from 97.5 The Fanatic. Neither is retired 94.1 WIP host Angelo Cataldi.

During his latest podcast for BetRivers, Missanelli opened up more about his May departure, making it pretty clear he had no intention of leaving the station last year after 15 years.

“I was willing to keep doing the show — the show was still viable. Retirement wasn’t even a thought in my head,” Missanelli said. “They decided to allow my contract to run out.”

Cataldi echoed Missanelli’s complaints during the closing minutes of his final WIP morning show last month. Cataldi made a point to mention Missanelli by name, a former colleague turned competitor who had abruptly left his longtime spot as The Fanatic’s afternoon host months earlier.

“He deserved a better goodbye in broadcasting than they gave him at that other station,” Cataldi said of Missanelli. “Shame on you.”

What drew Missanelli’s ire was a listener who claimed to have written the station following Cataldi’s retirement, asking why Missanelli wasn’t afforded the same opportunity. According to the listener, the station’s management claimed they offered Missanelli the chance to have a big sendoff, which he refused.

“That’s a flat out lie,” Missanelli said. “At no point in time was I ever afforded a chance to give a farewell, nor did they offer any kind of a celebratory farewell to me. In fact, they didn’t even mention retirement to me.”

Missanelli said he was working under the assumption he would receive a new contract in June 2022 when he discovered The Fanatic had already put a new show under contract, featuring Tyrone Johnson, NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Ricky Bottalico, Hunter Brody, and Jen Scordo.

“That’s when I decided I was done and I was going to walk away,” Missanelli said. “I was not going to come in and be humiliated as a guy who was the dead man walking while they had another show that they had under contract.”

You can listen to Missanelli’s full comments here.

Chuck Damico, The Fanatic’s program director, declined to comment on Missanelli’s podcast. Joe Bell, the vice president and market manager of Beasley Media Group’s Philadelphia stations, did not respond to a request for comment.

Beasley, like a lot of media organizations, has struggled over the past year. Its financial situation has improved some over the past few months, but it cut on-air staff in Philadelphia last year, including former Fanatic morning co-host Jamie Lynch and former 93.3 WMMR afternoon drive disc jockey Paul Jaxon.

Beasley, which is based in Naples, Fla., owns The Fanatic, WMMR, and five other stations in Philadelphia — 92.5 WXTU, 95.7 BEN FM, 102.9 WMGK, 610 ESPN, and 860 WWDB-AM.