Kirk Minihane, the contrarian co-host of the top-rated Kirk and Callahan show on Boston sports radio station WEEI, will start a new venture on Entercom-owned Radio.com in January 2019 or thereabouts.

As of Monday, the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. WEEI show will be renamed Mut and Callahan, with regular third man in Mike “Mut” Mutnansky as the permanent replacement and Gerry Callahan’s sidekick.

It remains to be seen if the Kirk-less Callahan crew can maintain its market share moving forward.

The station added Kirk Minihane as  a third voice to what was then called Dennis and Callahan in February 2013. John Dennis later retired after frequent conflicts with Minihane over the direction of the show.

Boston Press Reacts to the Lineup Change

“Kirk Minihane, whose near-six-year run as a co-host of WEEI’s morning program has been marked by controversy, contentiousness, and consistent ratings success, is leaving the program. But despite Minihane’s occasional airing of grievances with station and corporate management on social media, he is not leaving WEEI’s parent company, Entercom Communications,” the Boston Globe explained.

“Minihane is known as one of the more controversial figures in Boston sports media. He was suspended on multiple occasions during his time at WEEi due to on-air incidents…Minihane had been on a leave of absence from the show following what he has described as a battle with mental illness,” MassLive added.

Farewell WEEI Broadcast

Minihane returned to the WEEI airwaves this morning from 8 to 10 a.m. to discuss his departure in what was partially schtick and partially real, during which Callahan quipped that Kirk was leaving for a “cheesy, little Internet show.”

Entercom, which owns WEEI, was allegedly unwilling to reinstate Minihane as Gerry Callahan’s radio partner despite medical clearance because Minihane was apparently unwilling to comply with new corporate guidelines about sticking to sports content.

Minihane acknowledged that a contract buyout was also on the table during the protracted negotiations with Entercom execs.

Will Mini-Fans follow Kirk to the Radio.com app?

In a statement about the upcoming Radio.com platform, Minihane said that “I’m extremely excited to return to the air and reach a national audience, with greater autonomy to focus on a variety of topics, and even more digital platforms to connect with my fans.”

His show, which will add a co-host or a rotating co-host cohort, will air live on the app (probably outside of morning drive) and obviously will also be available on demand. It will be produced at the WEEI studios. Whether it will develop a sufficient, sustainable audience remains to be determined.

The Entercom corporate  statement also confirmed that the WEEI morning show is “being re-envisioned” as “more sports-centric” which is probably discouraging news for fans of the of the often-irreverent, freewheeling program.

The Kirk and Callahan broadcast is known for delving into hot-button social and political issues on both the local and national level in addition to news from the sports world.

Minihane describes himself as a libertarian who for some reason decided to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Both hosts, in particular, have been highly critical of Boston’s political correct, virtue-signaling sports media.

Minihane can’t seem to get beyond his “Trump is a moron” mantra (based on the president’s tweets and off-the-cuff comments), however, and has derailed some provocative political discussions because of that, even though he probably agrees with substantive portions of the Trump agenda.

He also has a tendency to interrupt his co-hosts, callers, and guests even more than Sean Hannity, if that’s possible.

Revelatory Interview

In a 40-minute interview with Richard Deitsch on the Sports Media podcast that dropped last night, Minihane compared his situation to some degree with Howard Stern’s 2006 decision to leave terrestrial radio for more editorial freedom.

He also acknowledged that he does not want to do the new show solo and that in a perfect word, he would have taken Callahan and producers Chris Curtis and Ken Laird with him to Radio.com

“Traditional sports radio has reached its peak. This is all new and different, and its an app, and people can listen to it all times of day, and I’m building something totally from scratch, which I’m really, really excited about…I don’t want to be [WFAN host] Mike Francesa, four hours of me droning about stuff and taking weird phone calls…”

Minihane will also begin writing columns on Radio.com, which brings things full circle as he originally joined WEEI as blogger and website editor.