By Clark DeLeon
Are you ready to read the dirtiest word in Philadelphia talk radio?
Five letters. Starts with W.
It got bleeped from the air Friday afternoon on WIP Sportsradio host Jody McDonald’s show when a caller asked if McDonald knew which professional sports team Philadelphia Magazine had picked in its Best of Philly issue. McDonald said he hadn’t heard and asked the caller to tell him, but that answer never made it to listeners who instead heard McDonald say, “There are some things we don’t talk about on the air, and that’s one of them.”
Five letters. Starts with W.
What could it be?
“I was just playing by the rules,” McDonald said yesterday, explaining why the profanity button was hit at the very mention of the W-word. “It’s well known around here that the Wings are something we don’t talk about on WIP because it’s a small interest sport that only the 16 or 17 thousand people who come to the Spectrum to watch are interested in.”
Wings is the dirty word? He’s joking, right?
On page 109 of Philadelphia Magazine is a photo of five members of the Philadelphia Wings (Billy Miller, Tony Resch, Kevin Finneran, Scott Gabrielsen, Chris Flynn) posing in their indoor lacrosse gear. The caption said they were named Best Team “for the wins beneath their Wings.” The Wings were only pro team in Philadelphia to make it to the league championship game last season.
McDonald admits to being a fan of the team, but the decision to keep the Wings from flying on ‘IP came from the top, station manager Tom Bigby. “I understand why Mr. Bigby does that,” McDonald said. “I’m an employee, I do what I’m told.”
So let’s ask Mr. Big himself? I called him, identified myself and asked him what’s the deal about the Wings?
“It’s a matter of air time and a matter of entertaining the most people all the time,” Bigby said over the phone yesterday afternoon. “The Wings have a very small, very intense, very vocal group of fans. I have nothing against indoor soccer, or whatever it is, box lacrosse.”
OK, OK, but isn’t it a little extreme to hit the seven-second delay button at the very mention of the word?
Boss Bigby got rolling. “It’s our radio station,” he said. “There’s no freedom of speech in public radio.”
Bigby said it was one particular Wings fan who kept calling the station. ”There’s a way he can talk about the Wings on the radio,” Bigby said. ”He can pay Ed Snider $17 million and buy the station.”
The station manager went on to say, “Of course, everything I’m saying is off the record.”
To which I responded, “What do you mean, off the record? I’m a reporter who called you for a comment and I’ve been writing down your answers. You can hear me typing them so I can quote you.”
Thus informed, Mr. Bigby continued. “It’s really not a sports talk station, it’s entertainment radio that just happens to talk about sports. We like to play the hits. We’ve got the highest market share of any sports talk station in the country and it’s not because we do sports. Do you ever listen to the morning show? Do you think that’s about sports?
“We consider the morning show to be a clean alternative to Howard Stern,” Bigby said. “That’s our competition.
“We’re not journalists here. Do you think of Angelo Cataldi as a journalist?”
“No,” I said, “but how about Al Morganti?”
“Al’s a very funny guy,” Bigby said. “We’re going to make a personality out of him yet.”
But what kind of listeners are you going after?
“I want thugs and thugettes,” he said. “That’s what made this city great. Go to Fishtown, go to Port Richmond, go to any of those neighborhoods.”
“Oh, you’re after the 700 level,” I said.
“Any one of them as a listener is worth 20 yuppies from the suburbs to advertisers,” Bigby said. “Ask the beer companies.”
So there’s your answer, sports fans. It’s about demographics, stoopid.
(Philadelphia Inquirer, July 28, 1993)