Craig Carton (born 1969) is a co-host of a radio sports show on WFAN in New York. In June 2007, he was named the #9 most influential political personality in the state of New Jersey.^[1]

Carton was born in New Rochelle, New York^[2], and attended New Rochelle High School, While in school he worked on the cable television show Views From the Bridge^[3].

Career

Carton started at 610-WIP^[4] in Philadelphia. He was a brash weekend host known as "The Kid". He had filled in on WIP's Morning Show and was familiar with the Sports Talk/Guy Talk format.

Carton quickly became popular in Philadelphia when he was the first person to break the news story that the Philadelphia Eagles had been sold. Unfortunately for Carton, he later broke another story regarding alleged alcohol abuse byEric Lindros (then a star hockey player with the Flyers). The story turned out to be untrue, and Carton lost both his reputation and position with WIP.

Carton left the East coast and did some time in Denver, Colorado, mostly at KKFN-AM 950, "The Fan". His morning show never really took off and he never got along with the program director, Tim Spence. He didn't last long and took his act over to a Denver FM station for a while but again, he never really caught on. Eventually he left Denver.

In late 2000 Carton became Scott Kaplan's replacement on WNEW's Sports Guys morning radio program in New York City. It seemed a natural fit for Carton to get the job in New York as a "Sports Guy". He was a Sports Guy for 1 year. He worked with Sid and Blaine (and briefly with Eddie) and then just Blaine when Sid left. Craig took the show in new directions and Sports Guys became less hard-core Sports, doing such stunts as an on-the-air Cockfight and Pastapalooza. Craig spent most of his time on the air trying to divide Yankee fans from Met fans and it seemed to alienate both sets of fans. During his tenure as ratings were still sour, he and Blaine held a successful phone-in campaign to get pledges to remain on the air. It helped him last another 6 months before he vanished from WNEW.^[5]

Craig and Blain were the duo that was on the air at WNEW when the events of September 11th, 2001 first unfolded.

Craig became a "Jersey Guy" on New Jersey 101.5. He had a non-Sports based talk show with Ray Rossi that is held weekday afternoons. His reputation as a shock-jock would soon grow. In 2005, Carton became embroiled with an on the air feud with NJ Acting Governor Richard Codey.^[6] Carton made comments about Codey's wife Mary-Jo's battle with postpartum depression prompting Codey himself to confront Carton in the studio. Carton would say "What Governor Codey ought to do is approve the use of medical marijuana so women can have a joint and relax instead of putting their babies in a microwave. Then all they want to do is cook Doritos. Women who claim they suffer from this postpartum depression ... they must be crazy in the first place."^[7] Codey would go back to respond: "I wish I weren't governor, I'd take you out", but did not say he would challenge Carton to a fight.

In March, 2007, Carton, with his on-air partner Rossi was involved in another controversy. This involved taking a political stand against illegal immigration in New Jersey by asking listeners to report illegal immigrants to the proper authorities.^[8] The campaign was termed which "Operation La Cucha Gotcha"^[9] and was considered to be slanderous against Hispanics.

Carton was selected as Boomer Esiason's co-host when Esiason was hired by WFAN to be the permanent replacement for Imus in the Morning.^[10][11][12] Esiason and Carton began their show September 4, 2007^[13].

References

See also

• Sports Guys
• The Jersey Guys
• WFAN