Mike Francesa still plans to leave WFAN-AM in December, but yesterday he "left the door wide open to rethinking that plan in the wake of last week’s arrest of morning co-host Craig Carton," according to Neil Best of NEWSDAY. Francesa said, "I will not turn my back on the station. Let’s see what the fall brings. I haven’t talked to anybody, but I know there are conversations ahead." Best notes Carton’s indefinite suspension "immediately prompted speculation that Francesa might be asked to stay on so that executives would not have to deal simultaneously with potential openings on the FAN’s two most important shows." Francesa would have been "subject to criticism had he changed his mind absent the Carton news, given the long buildup to his departure." But now he could "remain on the job in the name of helping the station through a programming crisis" (NEWSDAY, 9/13). Francesa: "Has this changed things? It has created some conversations. I don’t know that it has changed anything. I would say my gut feeling is no, but I would say that it has at least created conversations that weren’t there before." He added, "They had made it very clear to me many times in the last couple of months that they wanted me to stay, and I had convinced them it’s not going to happen. I think I had totally convinced them, and obviously now they want to have more conversations. But the only thing I told the whole place in the last couple of days is I wouldn’t turn my back on the station. I wouldn’t do that." Francesa: "Right now I’m still going forward with the plans that I’ve had the last couple of years. But I did say I’m open to conversations because I think I owe them that" (N.Y. POST, 9/13).
