Craig Carton has shown he has an audience wherever he goes.
The multi-time WFAN host is fresh off a stint at FS1, where he hosted The Carton Show and Breakfast Ball before the latter was canceled last summer. And while Carton has already taken that audience over to evenings back at WFAN, he believes the perception around viewership numbers at FS1 is all wrong.
In a recent appearance on The Awful Announcing Podcast, Carton highlighted the successes of his time at Fox Sports and made the argument that his show’s cancelation had far more to do with the network partnering with Barstool than his failures.
“The accurate story is that in the history of FS1, when it came to that specific time slot, we had the highest quarter-hours that time slot has ever had,” Carton said. “And we did not have the benefit of Skip and Shannon coming on after us and we had no lead-in either. And while the show ultimately didn’t get enough of an audience for them to want to continue to it … I’m proud of the work we did.”
Carton said he is still employed by Fox and that his podcast, which is produced by Fox-owned Red Seat Ventures, will continue even as he returns to WFAN.
The host also claimed, for the second time in recent weeks, that the FS1 morning show’s audience dropped “40 percent” when the name changed to Breakfast Ball and his name was no longer foregrounded. In the months since Carton left the daytime lineup, he noted the audience has once again fallen considerably.
“If you want to put what I did at FS1 with Cody Decker, with Mark Schlereth, with Danny Parkins against any iteration of a morning show on FS1, our show stands tall,” he said. “And we should be proud of that.”
However, Carton fully understands Fox’s decision to get in business with Barstool Sports, whose show Wake Up Barstool now fills Carton’s old 8 a.m. ET slot.
“Obviously. I wish the show had the biggest audience on the network. It did not,” Carton said. “And I think if you’re Fox and you have the opportunity to partner with one of the great sports brands in the country today, you do it. I get it, totally. If I could partner with Barstool, I would, if I’m a network.”
While FS1’s constant tinkering with its studio show lineup could lead some to believe that it is purely trying to dominate the sports audience, Carton pushed back on the idea that the network is trying to compete with its rivals in Bristol.
“I don’t think FS1, in the mornings, competes with ESPN. I don’t think it ever has, I don’t think it ever will,” Carton said. “FS1 has its own niche audience, which is very loyal and coast to coast, and that’s great. But I think saying that FS1 is in a real competition with ESPN is not fair to FS1.”
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.