Maggie Gray, Chris Carlin and Bart Scott were ‘unhateable’

Chris Carlin, Maggie Gray, and Bart Scott were the show that WFAN listeners loved to hate, even before they considered giving them a chance.

Carlin, Gray, and Scott, or CMB as they were known on WFAN, were given the difficult task of replacing Mike Francesa when he retired from afternoon drive the first time in 2017. And the trio reunited Tuesday on ESPN Radio in New York, when Gray joined Carlin and Scott on their weekday show. During the reunion, Gray suggested WFAN listeners had made up their minds about not liking Francesa’s replacement before they even got started.

“We got hired to replace Mike Francesa. It was a big deal at the time, and I think people just really wanted to hate us, but it turns out we are three unhateable people,” Gray said as she quickly explained why it’s hard to hate her former co-hosts. “But people wanted to hate us. They had already made up their mind that they didn’t like us, and then obviously Mike came back.”

The station was in a state of flux for maybe the first time ever, with Francesa retiring just as Carton was exiting the morning show after being arrested. At the same time, WFAN was also getting new ownership with CBS Radio and Entercom merging, and they were likely intrigued by Francesa’s star power.

Francesa ultimately came out of retirement after just one ratings book, a book CMB lost to The Michael Kay Show for the first time in station history, albeit by a small margin. But the return bumped CMB to an early afternoon timeslot, with WFAN opting for the less conventional four-show lineup.

“We lost by a tenth of a point to Michael Kay,” Carlin recalled. “We were three months on the job, and [program director Mark Chernoff] put the Islanders on the air on President’s Day that got a 0.0, and it just buried us.”

Carlin noted Francesa also returned at a discount, claiming the former afternoon drive host attempted to hold WFAN up for nearly $5 million after Carton was arrested, but ultimately came back for significantly less than CMB was making as a trio.

“I’ll stand by this,” Gray added. “It was a great show. People just didn’t want to like us. We were a little early. We were silly. That was it.”

CMB was undoubtedly an unfinished product when they took over for Francesa. And initially, they struggled to find chemistry amid the pressure of replacing a legend. But once Francesa returned, Carlin, Gray, and Scott were able to enter a sort of ‘give no f*cks’ era on WFAN, and quickly developed into a good show with comfortable chemistry. Unfortunately for CMB, WFAN didn’t really need four shows in its lineup. And as contracts expired, the station slowly reverted back to a more traditional, and cost-effective, three-show lineup.