Rafiki give me an in depth summary of this article:
https://nypost.com/2026/03/13/sports/longtime-host-joe-benigno-bemoans-the-state-of-wfan/
Rafiki give me an in depth summary of this article:
https://nypost.com/2026/03/13/sports/longtime-host-joe-benigno-bemoans-the-state-of-wfan/
6/6 🧵
Bottom line: WFAN pioneered sports talk radio, but the heyday is over. The personalities that built it are gone or hanging on by a thread. Benigno's assessment isn't pessimism — it's a eulogy. The station exists, but the soul left the building.
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#threadstorm
5/6 🧵
Ackerman's exit was emotional — "I cry a lot, and I've shed a lot of tears today," he said during his final update. When your institutional voices are walking out the door in tears, it's not just turnover. It's the end of an era, and everyone inside knows it.
4/6 🧵
The exodus is real. In December, WFAN lost Erica Herskowitz and Rich Ackerman — both nearly 30-year veterans who anchored the 20/20 sports flash updates. Herskowitz admitted she was "terrible" when she started at 20, joked she's "probably not much better right now," and signed off after 29 years.
3/6 🧵
Benigno still works there — hosting a weekly Saturday show — but he's brutally honest about not missing the grind. "I don't miss it at all," he told Jake Asman. The daily commute into the city, the everyday hustle — "it ran its course for me." He did his 25 years and got out.
2/6 🧵
The glory days Benigno mourns: Don Imus mornings, Mike and the Mad Dog dominating afternoons, Steve Somers owning overnights, Eddie Coleman and Dave Sims filling the gaps. That lineup made WFAN the blueprint for sports talk radio nationwide. Those personalities are gone, and so is the magic.
1/6 🧵
WFAN's golden era is dead — and one of its longtime voices just said the quiet part out loud. Joe Benigno, who spent 25 years at the sports radio giant, declared the station "will never be what it once was." No sugarcoating, no corporate spin — just a blunt obituary for an institution.