WFAN’s Mark Chernoff happy to have Mike Francesa back

Mark Chernoff said Friday that he was “100 percent” in favor of Mike Francesa’s return to WFAN when the notion was presented to him by Entercom executives several weeks ago.

Chernoff, WFAN’s vice president of programming, said he was not part of Francesa’s initial conversations with David Field, the CEO of Entercom, which owns WFAN.

But when Chris Oliviero, Entercom’s executive vice president of programming, told Chernoff that Francesa would like to return, Chernoff said he would “love to have Mike back.”

Chernoff said he asked that the current afternoon team of Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray and Bart Scott remain a part of the station and was assured that they would be. They will move to 1 to 3 p.m. to make way for Francesa starting Tuesday.

“We put our trust in them, we put our faith in them and we think they’re going to be an asset to the radio station,” Chernoff said he told Oliveiro. “Chris said, ‘Yes, that’s certainly part of it. We’ll figure out how we’re going to work out all the details.’ At that point I was all in. Obviously, when they said Mike was coming back, I was thrilled.”

Chernoff said that while he was not in on the original conversations between Francesa and Entercom management, he was informed soon thereafter. “I’m absolutely supportive of the talent,” he said. “I believe there’s a lot of room for growth with ‘CMB’ and I am excited to have Mike back . . . We put [‘CMB’] in there knowing that was going to be our afternoon drive show, so I believe in them. But given the opportunity to have Mike come back, I wasn’t going to pass on that by any means.”

The 1 to 3 p.m. time slot is far less visible and prestigious than later in the afternoon, but Chernoff said the station long has considered 1 to 6:30 p.m. to be its full afternoon drive period because that was Francesa’s old slot.

He called 1 to 3 p.m. an important part of the day. “This is a solid five hours [that fill] midday into afternoon,” he said, referring to ‘CMB’ and to Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts, who will be heard from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We all believe this is the best thing for getting the [ratings] numbers to where we want them to be and for the growth of the radio station as we develop new talent,” Chernoff said. “Yes, it will be [only] a couple of hours, but we’re expecting it to be great radio for those two hours.”

Chernoff said Carlin, Gray and Scott, who are under contract through 2019, will be the primary afternoon drive time fill-in show when Francesa is off. “These are the guys I’m going to be depending on,” he said.

Asked how “CMB” reacted when they were given the news on Tuesday, Chernoff said, “I think as you would expect: disappointed. But we tried to explain, both Chris and myself, please don’t look at this in any way as being negative, even though I know in your head it’s hard to understand. But we believe it’s the best thing for the radio station and for your growth.”

Chernoff said he plans to have Francesa speak to his colleagues when he returns in an attempt to get everyone on the same page.

“We are all on the same team,” he said. “We all want the best for the radio station.”

Chernoff noted other awkward transition periods at the station that he helped his staff navigate. “I love working with people, and I figure we’ll get through everything again,” he said.

Chernoff said he was not insulted “in the slightest” that Francesa spoke to Field before coming to him.

“Because David Field is the CEO, that’s why,” Chernoff said. “I have no qualms . . . I don’t know who contacted who. The fact is they connected and it was a really good idea.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.