I’ve also learned that’s not the sort of host I am. I’ve gained an enormous amount of respect for Angelo since I’ve been here, and I already had a bunch of respect for my father. If you consider Angelo and my father the most popular personalities, they’re very polarizing and it’s been very successful for them. Sports radio is mostly remembered by the most popular personalities. I’ve learned it takes a lot of preparation. A lot of times it can be a 12 minute segment, then a 10 minute segment, then a 15 minute segment where you’re just talking. If the callers aren’t working, based on a topic you’re doing, you sometimes have to do it yourself. They help hold things up and help build it, but they are not the show, you are the show. The people that are listening, you have to figure, are listening for you, so the callers have to be a foundation for the house that is your show. The callers are there for you, but they can’t be a crutch. It also doesn’t make for great radio all the time. You can’t just say something and the phone lines light up. The other challenge is that people think that on Sports radio, you just get on the air and say something, and immediately there are ten lines lit up and you just take call after call after call. for my normal job, so when I’m on 10p-2a, chances are I’ve been up for almost a full day by the end of the show. The downfall to that is I get up at 4 a.m. You can’t just say “3-4 defense” and expect everybody to know what that means.Īs far as WIP, it has been an exciting process in figuring out who I am as personality. It’s sports for people who aren’t tuning in only for sports, and you have to simplify. KYW Newsradio is completely different than anything I had done since college. How has your approach to radio changed as you’ve transitioned thru your career? All in all I’m very happy with all of it. TV, which is completely different than the other ones, and writing without really having an editor, since I am the editor. It’s been a process learning the presentation on KYW vs. I went to Syracuse for Broadcast Journalism, so I was at least trained for it at one point and I had done enough writing to give me a feel for it. That’s when I started my website and the writing and the podcasting and convincing CBS that they needed somebody like this to tie all their Sports properties together on the web, on the radio and on TV. I had just been Spike up to that point in my career, but I realized if I was going to be a sports person, I was going to have to use a first and last name. I had never used my last name on-air before either. I’ve never lost my job before.” But it was also an opportunity to reestablish what I was and re-create and take another path. When ‘YSP came to an end, there was that panic of “Oh my God, I don’t have a job. So I started a blog while I was at ‘YSP, and I began to write sports for the ‘YSP website and podcast and do things like that. I asked for a press pass once from the Sixers and they gave me a season press pass. So for the last couple years at ‘YSP, I felt creatively stifled, and my mind is always going. It’s more about the music than it ever was. Also, in music radio, as far as being an air personality, you don’t create very much anymore. When I went on air again at ‘YSP, I wasn’t playing new music for people. When I had moved to Chicago, I was off the air completely and I kind of enjoyed that. When we changed to mostly Classic Rock, I became more of an on-air person than I had planned on. I had done music radio a long time and I had partially gotten into it to play new music for people. I was sad about what happened to WYSP, but it had been a couple years of almost being bored there. It was exciting, and I don’t just say that in retrospect. How was the transition for you from doing Rock radio most of your career to Sports/News/Talk? I’m a sports reporter and anchor for KYW Newsradio, and I’m a host for WIP and also part of the CBS Sunday Kickoff Eagles pre-game show for CBS3. My main title is CBS-Philadelphia Sports Editor. How many jobs and titles do you have at CBS-Philly? In a new interview with FMQB (where he briefly worked at one point), Spike discusses the unique variety of roles he fills at CBS-Philly, what he has learned on his new career path, the power of Twitter and much more. Spike is no stranger to the Sports world, as his father is the controversial Philadelphia media mainstay Howard Eskin. After CBS Radio flipped ‘YSP to become the new FM home of Sports Talk mainstay WIP, Spike eventually segued to a completely different side of radio, as Sports Editor for CBS’s powerhouse News KYW-AM and WIP. After years at now-defunct Rocker WYSP, Spike joined (also now-defunct) Modern Rock WKQX (Q101)/Chicago, before returning home to ‘YSP. Spike Eskin has spent his entire life around the radio business, primarily in the Philadelphia market.
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