Spike Eskin has grown up around radio, thanks to his father, Philadelphia Sports media mainstay Howard Eskin. After years at now-defunct Rocker WYSP (with a stint at also-now-defunct Modern Rock WKQX (Q101)/Chicago), Spike was named Sports Editor for CBS Radio’s Philadelphia stations, specifically powerhouse News KYW-AM and longtime Sports talker WIP. In his new role, he juggles Sports reporting on KYW, heading up social media for WIP, the occasional on-air shifts and whatever else comes his way. In a new interview with FMQB (where he briefly worked at one point), Spike discusses this 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.

By Joey Odorisio

Spike Eskin has spent his entire life around the radio business, primarily in the Philadelphia market. After years at now-defunct Rocker WYSP, Spike joined (also now-defunct) Modern Rock WKQX (Q101)/Chicago, before returning home to ‘YSP. AfterCBS 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. Spike is no stranger to the Sports world, as his father is the controversial Philadelphia media mainstay Howard Eskin.
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.

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How many jobs and titles do you have at CBS-Philly?
My main title is CBS-Philadelphia Sports Editor. I also run social media for WIP. 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. I do whatever they tell me to.

How was the transition for you from doing Rock radio most of your career to Sports/News/Talk?
It was exciting, and I don’t just say that in retrospect. I was sad about what happened to WYSP, but it had been a couple years of almost being bored there. I had done music radio a long time and I had partially gotten into it to play new music for people. When we changed to mostly Classic Rock, I became more of an on-air person than I had planned on. When I had moved to Chicago, I was off the air completely and I kind of enjoyed that. When I went on air again at ‘YSP, I wasn’t playing new music for people. Also, in music radio, as far as being an air personality, you don’t create very much anymore. It’s more about the music than it ever was. So for the last couple years at ‘YSP, I felt creatively stifled, and my mind is always going.
           I asked for a press pass once from the Sixers and they gave me a season press pass. 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. When ‘YSP came to an end, there was that panic of “Oh my God, I don’t have a job. 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.
           I had never used my last name on-air before either. 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. 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 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. It’s been a process; learning the presentation on KYW vs. the presentation on WIP vs. TV, which is completely different than the other ones, and writing without really having an editor, since I am the editor. All in all I’m very happy with all of it.

How has your approach to radio changed as you’ve transitioned thru your career?
KYW Newsradio is completely different than anything I had done since college. It’s very direct. It’s sports for people who aren’t tuning in only for sports, and you have to simplify. You can’t just say “3-4 defense” and expect everybody to know what that means.
           As far as WIP, it has been an exciting process in figuring out who I am as [a Sports talk] personality. Most of the shows are late at night. The downfall to that is I get up at 4 a.m. 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 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. It doesn’t work like that at midnight. [laughs] You can’t just say something and the phone lines light up. It also doesn’t make for great radio all the time. The callers are there for you, but they can’t be a crutch. 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. They help hold things up and help build it, but they are not the show, you are the show. If the callers aren’t working, based on a topic you’re doing, you sometimes have to do it yourself. 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. I’ve learned it takes a lot of preparation.
           The other thing is finding my own voice. Sports radio is mostly remembered by the most popular personalities. If you consider [morning host] Angelo [Cataldi] and my father the most popular personalities [on WIP], they’re very polarizing and it’s been very successful for them. 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. I’ve also learned that’s not the sort of host I am. I’ve been able to establish myself as somebody who tries to live in-between black and white issues and explore the middle of it and most of all, be honest. I found that people respond to that. I think you can get into trouble saying, “This is what the audience likes, so you should be that.” What I try to do is say, “This is what I’m like.” Hopefully there’s enough audience for people that like me, so I can be successful, because if I’m changing who I am to do the show, that’s not too much different than having a regular job that I wouldn’t like doing. I want to like what I do, so it’s important for me to be who I am.
           You find that there are people who like everything, so even though on a grand scale it seems like the Sixers are uninteresting to everybody, the people who are interested in them come to me. I have this weird vibe where I talk about wrestling and the NBA and these things don’t even go together!

I’m glad you described it that way, because as a Sports fan and as a listener, I prefer that middle, rational ground to the extreme positions.
I’ve found there are fans like that that exist; there just may not be enough of them. I do know that the people who have found new frontiers in sports radio, or in radio in general, have been different than what is conventional. When my father and Angelo started, what they were doing was not conventional. That’s part of the genius of what they did: they found something people reacted to, and people still react to it in droves. It seems simple but it’s very smart. They really are masters at understanding listening and understanding how to evoke emotion. I hope to one day, in my own way and style, to be able to evoke as much emotion as they do, but I hope to do it by being me. I think people really respond to being yourself. It’s been a lot of fun and a learning process. Part of it is being the best and most succinct version of yourself, and sorting through your 800 opinions to find the best ones to present that night, and also the radio mechanics of teasing those things and presenting them in such a way that people respond to.

You’ve been in Philadelphia almost your entire career. What did you learn during your stint in Chicago?
Chicago was fun. Personally I found a large portion of myself I never knew existed in Chicago. Mike Stern expected me to be smart and help lead. When you’re a young programmer, and you’re working under people, you have this list of things you always thought your bosses should’ve done but didn’t have the guts to do. When Mike left and I was left to my own devices, I did all of those things at once. That was probably not the right thing to do as a programmer, but I did learn to trust my instincts. I learned the right and wrong ways to work with talent, because I did them both. I learned how to manage people. I learned how to have a pretty good eye for talent. I was pretty proud that I put Gordon on the air and he succeeded. Kevin Manno is on TV now, he was a promo team guy when I was there, and I’m really proud of that. I think I helped Electra along a lot. I did have my failures with talent as well. I made a lot of mistakes but I learned through a lot of them.

You mentioned the Eagles TV gig. What other new opportunities have come up? You co-hosted with Artie Lange on his national show, right?
I co-hosted with Artie and hosted that show alone once too. That was pretty amazing. It was after Nick DiPaolo left and they were looking for a co-host. The show used to be on WIP-AM [before it became part of the national CBS Sports Radio network] and when there was a Philly story, they would call on me to do a segment with Nick and Artie. They asked if I could come in one night, and I’ve never laughed harder than I did working with Artie. Now they found a great co-host in Jon Ritchie, who used to be a fullback for the Eagles, and really fits in with the show.
           I was on a Fox News radio show the other day, I’ve done a million of those guest spots on [other cities’] radio shows now. They wanted somebody to talk about steroids, which I thought was funny: I was on a political talk show talking about the steroid issue. I’ve done some Comcast SportsNet stuff. I basically do whatever anyone asks me to do: any time, any place, any podcast, any radio show, I do it. I say yes. I don’t think I’ve said no yet to anybody. The Artie show was probably the biggest. If anyone grew up listening to Howard Stern, which I did, he’s Artie!

What have you learned about your father’s work and his life by essentially being in his shoes at WIP?
First of all I don’t know how he did it for as long as he did. Four hours a day talking about just Philadelphia sports, because Philadelphia is very provincial. There’s sports going on across the country and they’re not really an issue in Philadelphia. When the Super Bowl is happening, there’s not very much Super Bowl talk happening on WIP, unless the Eagles are in it, because it’s very provincial. As impatient as he seems, he must have more patience than I do, because I can’t imagine talking about those things every day for that long without a break.
           The other thing is he has the uncanny ability to bring both extreme positive and negative emotions out of people. People really love him or really don’t like him. I’ve thought I’m not all that talented, I’m just really friendly when people interact with me, so I get the benefit of the doubt a lot. I think I learned that from him. He has this vibe where people “hate Howard Eskin,” but the minute they meet him, they never say a bad word ever again, because he never doesn’t stop to shake a hand or take a picture or sign an autograph. I think I work a lot, but he still works seven days a week. He does Monday through Friday on Fox TV in Philadelphia, Saturdays on WIP and Sunday nights on Fox as well, and he’s our Eagles sideline reporter for WIP. His work ethic is something I try to emulate but I don’t think I could ever work as much as he does.
           I was nervous coming to WIP because he’s got a lot of history here and not everybody got along with him very well. I was worried coming in that I would be held to some sort of previous standard that I wasn’t responsible for, but luckily that hasn’t happened. I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with the other hosts.

Few people I know tweet as much as you. It has let you expand what you cover, such as wrestling and other topics. How has Twitter affected your job and radio and (I hate to use this term) “personal brand?”
The personal branding is lame to say but it is a real thing. I learned from Twitter very early on that the more focused and honest you are, the better people react to you. A guy in a cover band told me once that he always acted like he was playing Madison Square Garden, because when he was actually playing Madison Square Garden, he would know how to do it. You always have to treat Twitter like everybody’s reading everything you do and you have a ton of followers. If you treat it that way and stay that committed to it, it’ll work. If people like you and enjoy it, it’ll work.
           Twitter has changed the game for me. I feel it was the reason I’m able to build what I’m able to build. I’m only on the radio once a week at most, but I am able to talk to people 24/7 if I want. If a story breaks that I think people want to know my opinion on, I can give that opinion. So I don’t need the show, my show is 24/7, and I can answer every theoretical phone call. They don’t have to get in on the phone lines; they can always get to me. It’s gotten harder, the more followers I’ve gotten. It also creates relationships. Ange Goldstein, who I sometimes have on the air to talk wrestling, I only know because I met him through Twitter. The Grantland guys I’ve had on the air, like Andy Greenwald, I know through Twitter.
           There are a million things about Twitter I can’t stand, but it has provided me the opportunity to make myself known without having a radio signal to do that.

For our national readers, what’s your view of the current Philadelphia sports landscape in a nutshell?
The Philly sports environment has ramped down in the last year and a half. Not in terms of interest, there’s a ton of interest, but everything was so good here for about 5-7 years, where everybody was winning all the time. I think the city felt that it was sort of shedding that insecurity, that loser image they had about themselves. There is some insecurity now because it feels like it’s coming back. The Phillies are potentially on the verge of a not-so-great few years. The Sixers have a plan in place but it’s not going to be a great couple of years. I don’t think anybody’s entirely sure what the Flyers are doing. The Eagles are sort of the only hope right now, and it’s because it’s different and new, but nobody’s even sure if it’s any good. It could be a few dark years around here, but the amazing thing is that people still love all of it. There’s just so much of an appetite for sports in Philly. Its mind blowing, it’s almost scary. It makes you question, “Why do I have a job doing this? Why is it important enough for me to have a career doing this?” So the sports aren’t good, but the fans are still there.

[eQB Content By Joey Odorisio]