Former WFAN 20/20 sports update anchors discuss the station no longer needing their services
A young Jerry Recco during WFAN's morning show with Boomer and Carton on Oct. 15, 2014. Credit: Charles Eckert
Here’s an update: On WFAN, sports updates — with the exception of Jerry Recco’s on the “Boomer and Gio” morning show — became extinct late last year.
No more “20/20 sports flashes.” No more scores and news reports. Just talk, ads, and then more talk.
Along with the change, WFAN let go of some longtime update anchors, including Rich Ackerman (28 years at the station) and Erica Herskowitz (29 years).
Ackerman broke the news of his departure on X on Dec. 1. It was not the sort of news he wanted to report.
“They were very good about everything,” Ackerman told Newsday in a telephone interview. “I just did it for my own personal reasons. I had their OK to do it. I was probably the first. Not that I take pride in being the first on that, but I probably came out before anything else.”
Suzyn Waldman was the first voice heard on WFAN (which was then on 1050-AM) when the nation’s first 24-hour all-sports station debuted on July 1, 1987. Waldman opened by noting the historic nature of the broadcast and then went right into a report on the previous day’s Yankee game.
The final non-morning show update was delivered by Long Island native Peter Schwartz in the wee hours of the morning on Dec. 29. Schwartz has continued with WFAN as a fill-in for Recco on the morning show.
Why did WFAN ditch most of the updates? Chris Oliviero, the chief business officer and New York market president for WFAN’s parent company Audacy, said it came down to the way things have changed in the radio game.
“I think the decision on updates really was the outcome of us asking ourselves a couple of questions,” Oliviero told Newsday in a telephone interview. “We asked ourselves, what do people come to WFAN for? And then we kind of asked ourselves, what do we offer that's unique, distinctive, as opposed to items that might be readily available in other places. When you think about it, people come to us for sports debate, sports engagement, sports entertainment. They want to kind of be plugged into the pulse of the New York sports fan. Scores in 2026 would not fall into that category that's unique to us or distinctive to us.
“So we have to recognize that technology has changed clearly in terms of making available scores and that information in other places. It’s probably no different than back in the day when newspapers used to print every stock quote in the world over page after page after page and then eventually they realized they could still cover business without printing every single stock quote. To us it was kind of just recognizing where technology was and also recognizing what people come to us for, and they come to us for our personalities, our engagement, our debate.”
Oliviero said the station might have made the decision sooner if not for the realization that doing so would have meant saying goodbye to some valued longtime employees.
“Absolutely, the personal part of the decision is always the most difficult one,” Oliviero said. “The business part of the decision, I think, was fairly black and white and straightforward. But obviously, the people involved makes it more difficult. Honestly, the people involved might have been a reason we didn't do this sooner.”
Ackerman, 57, said he hopes to land a play-by-play gig in his next act. He saw the writing on the studio wall over the last few years at WFAN.
“It was pretty clear what was happening,” he said. “So I wasn't totally surprised. You're kind of surprised when it happens, but you could see changes coming. It's just the changing landscape of the industry.”
Did it have to be?
“I don't begrudge their decision,” Ackerman said. “Doesn't mean I agree with it, but I don't begrudge their decision. It's disappointing. But that's life, unfortunately.”
Ackerman said he was in tears after he did his final update – mostly because of the emotional sendoff he received from longtime colleagues -- and then felt the loss a few days after his long run at WFAN was over.
“It first hit me the day after the NFL season ends when all the coaches get fired,” Ackerman said. “I'd be checking Twitter every two seconds to see who's out, and then, of course, we get John Harbaugh, and then we get Bo Bichette, and all these great stories, and I'm like, ‘Oh man, this is killing me right now. ’ ”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
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