Gerry Callahan sat down this morning with former radio partner Kirk Minihane on the irreverent Kirk Minihane Show podcast, a daily offering that is part of the Barstool Sports network, to discuss his new venture.
The frenemies worked together in morning drive on Boston sports radio station WEEI on the Dennis & Callahan show and the subsequently renamed Kirk & Callahan show after John Dennis retired.
The duo presided over monster ratings until WEEI parent Entercom booted both of them out as part of the cancel culture. Prior to going into radio full time, Callahan was a reporter and columnist for the Boston Herald and Sports Illustrated.
This blog has chronicled the WEEI drama. Since both hosts left the station, replacing them with the boring, plain-vanilla Greg Hill Show as the replacement in the time slot, WEEI rating have cratered. This includes massive collateral damage across the radio station’s entire daypart, not just morning drive.
Callahan announced this morning that he is resuming his media career with the launch of The Gerry Callahan Podcast beginning Monday, January 6, 2020. Prior to the premiere, the Callahan team intends to drop some audio snippets as part of a soft launch (at this writing, there is no listing on iTunes, but check back for updates). For now, new podcasts will drop Monday through Thursday mornings.
The Callahan Podcast will cover sports and politics; upcoming guests include the very un-PC Uncle Turtleboy and ex-MLB star Curt Schilling and other “free speech martyrs.” The plan is for Minihane to appear on the podcast regularly, perhaps even on opening day.
Callahan, who was on the air at WEEI for about 20 years, added that he’s also trying to get some liberals to spar with him on the show.
The Kirk & Callahan WEEI show’s motto was “we talk about things that sports fans talk about,” not necessarily just tiresome sports dialogue. In addition to sports chatter, the Kirk and Callahan broadcast nonetheless became known for delving into hot-button social and political issues on both the local and national level. Gerry Callahan is a conservative, while Minihane claims to be a libertarian who somehow voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Update: You can now subscribe to the Gerry Callahan “politics, sports, and revenge” podcast on iTunes and Spotify. The revenge part sounds the most interesting.
[Featured image credit: Andy Leung/Pixabay]