Two former 97.5 Fanatic hosts launching a new midday show
Harry Mayes and Eytan Shander left 97.5 The Fanatic under very different circumstances, but are joining forces on a new daily show.
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Two former 97.5 The Fanatic hosts are teaming up for a new midday show, but they’re crossing the Delaware River to do it.
Former midday host Harry Mayes and fired fill-in host Eytan Shander will team-up to host a new midday show on 97.3 ESPN (WENJ) out of Northfield, N.J., the duo announced on the air Friday afternoon. The yet-unnamed show — which will basically be a cleaned-up version of their Derailed podcast — will air from noon to 2 p.m. on weekdays starting April 1.
“We just felt Harry and Eytan would connect with our listeners,” program director Mike Gill said. “It’s not something that was planned, the timing just happened to work, we got creative and are excited. We are looking to give entertaining and informative shows to our listeners and these guys thrive in that style.”
The new show will become just the second local sports talk show added to the station’s lineup since switching to ESPN Radio in 2009, and will serve as a lead-in for Gill’s Sports Bash afternoon show. Currently, the station airs Dan Le Batard’s syndicated sports talk show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Mayes had been with the Fanatic since the station first launched on AM radio as Sports Radio 950 in 2005, but lost his job co-hosting alongside Jason Myrtetus when the station shuffled its lineup in October to make way for a new morning show hosted by Marc Farzetta and William “Tra” Thomas. The Fanatic wanted to move Mayes to its new morning show, but the longtime host told the Inquirer the two sides could not agree on the right financial compensation.
"You can expect absolutely zero preparation," Mayes joked to Gill during his show Friday afternoon, which was broadcast from the Super Bowl’s Radio Row down in Atlanta.
Shander had been a fill-in host at The Fanatic across just about every time slot at the station since 2014, but said he was fired in October after sending several tweets denouncing that his hours had been drastically cut as a result of the station’s new lineup. In addition to the new show, Shander also hosts for SB Nation Radio and appears regularly on FOX 29.
97.3 ESPN, which is owned by Townsquare Media, broadcasts in parts of eight South Jersey counties, and can be heard in most of Delaware.