WRKO host Howie Carr heads into Suffolk Superior Court yesterday.
The Globe’s take on it:
Decision on Carr’s future may come today
Judge to rule on whether WRKO pact still in force
By Diedtra Henderson, Globe Staff | October 16, 2007
Radio talk show host Howie Carr, whose tortuous contract negotiations have kept him in limbo between two stations, may learn as early as this morning whether he can return to the airwaves on a new station.
Suffolk Superior Court Judge Allan van Gestel yesterday afternoon heard arguments from lawyers representing Carr, his current employer, WRKO-AM, and his suitor station, WTKK-FM, which reportedly has offered the popular talk show host and Boston Herald columnist a more lucrative contract worth $7 million over five years. Media accounts suggest that Carr earned $790,000 in 2006. A Carr spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment on those figures.
Carr has been off the air since Sept. 19, although WRKO continues to promote his 3 to 7 p.m. weekday radio program, The Howie Carr Show.
At issue is a contract Carr signed with WRKO that was due to expire in late September. According to Carr’s lawyers, Entercom Boston, which owns WRKO, could have extended that contract if it had exercised a renewal option by the deadline. Instead, Carr received a more lucrative offer from WTKK, owned by Greater Boston Media. WTTK had hoped to begin airing his talk show in the morning this fall.
Entercom says that by matching the competitor’s offer it has kept Carr under contract through 2012. In an interim memo last month, the judge sided with Entercom on that issue.
During yesterday’s hearing, Carr’s lawyers sought to reverse the interim ruling.
“He does not wish to return to Entercom, and the court’s previous order restricts his ability to pursue a career path of his choosing,” Bret A. Cohen, Carr’s lawyer, wrote in asking the judge to reconsider the ruling.
During the hearing, Cohen argued that Carr’s contract should be read at face value: It expired on Sept. 19.
Van Gestel, in statements from the bench, said the contract with WRKO remains valid.
“It continues,” van Gestel said. “That’s where you and I disagree,” he told Cohen, of Mintz Levin.
Cohen, in one of many legal cases drawing from professional sports, pointed to a case involving boxing great Rocky Marciano. The boxer’s trainer attempted to enter into a written contract that would have kept him the trainer well into the future, should Marciano turn pro.
“The law is clear,” Cohen said, arguing that neither the boxing great nor Carr could be forced to agree to a contract in the future - especially one that failed to spell out the contract’s length or compensation.
“There is a dollar amount and a period of time,” countered the judge.
Van Gestel then reached for a sporting case of his own, citing a contract involving a race horse that locked up future earnings for contests not yet run. That contract was found to be enforceable.
Nancy Sterling, Carr’s spokeswoman, declined to comment.
The judge, in this morning’s hearing, is also expected to decide whether to grant an injunction that would limit WTKK from discussing Carr’s potential move to the radio station.
Shepard Davidson, a lawyer for Entercom, said WTKK has used such language on its website as “they hope, they wish, they want, they expect” in describing Carr’s interest in moving to the station. The statements seek to “torpedo” Entercom’s relationship with advertisers, Davidson argued, in seeking an injunction to silence “plainly misleading” promises that Carr is headed to WTKK “soon.”
Josh Davis, a lawyer representing WTKK, said the judge should reject the injunction request because it seeks to enjoin “words, as opposed to actions.”