https://nypost.com/2018/08/21/inside-the-alleged-frat-house-culture-plaguing-cbs-radio/
Note this is Entercom dealing with a carryover when CBS Radio ran the cluster
Note this is Entercom dealing with a carryover when CBS Radio ran the cluster
When CBS Radio hired Craig Lenti in 2006, he knew the company well — after all, his dad, Joe McCoy, was a program director there for 25 years.
But when Craig started working as a producer for longtime personality Dan Taylor, who he’d known since childhood, the company turned from the “playground” of his youth to an “Animal House”-style nightmare, he told The Post.
Over the next year, Lenti was forced to endure Taylor calling a fellow on-air personality a “f–king Jew bastard,” referring to a marketing manager as a “dyke” and describing a potential co-worker as “faggy,” he claims in contemporaneous notes made in a daily diary he kept — which was submitted to CBS Radio’s human resources in 2007 as part of a hostile workplace complaint.
Taylor, who hosts a daily 10 a.m.-to-3 p.m. show on WCBS-FM 101.1, would also avoid discussing Oprah Winfrey and other black celebrities on air, Lenti alleged in the diary, a copy of which was reviewed by The Post.
“That was the sick genius of it all. He never really let on about who he really is until you were in the studio with him. Once that [studio] door closed, all bets were off,” the 40-year-old producer said in a recent interview.
Lenti hoped his well-kept record of Taylor’s mephitic mutterings would result in HR ordering the DJ to stop — but it didn’t.
Lenti hoped his well-kept record of Taylor’s mephitic mutterings would result in HR ordering the DJ to stop — but it didn’t.
“When I went to HR, [the company’s] excuse was he didn’t know that I was bi, gay, whatever you want to call it, and he didn’t specifically target me,” Lenti said of the late-summer 2007 meeting between HR, Taylor and himself — a meeting prompted by his complaint.
“[Taylor] pointed his finger at me and told me that if I had a problem with how he was behaving, I should have told him directly,” he said.
Taylor wasn’t disciplined beyond the meeting with HR. Rather, Lenti was transferred off Taylor’s popular show soon after.
Lenti was laid off five days before Christmas 2013. After “holding on to the pain” of working with Taylor for nearly a decade, last November, as Entercom bought CBS Radio, including WFAN and WCBS-FM, Lenti posted a message on Facebook urging the station’s new owner to take action against its alleged bad apple.
SEE ALSO
Joe Benigno’s threesome come-ons in middle of WFAN’s frat-house lawsuit
Joe Benigno's threesome come-ons in middle of WFAN's frat-house lawsuit
Lenti mentioned Taylor in his post. His troubles at the radio giant were aired publicly just months before Lauren Lockwood, a former top saleswoman at the media company, claimed in a shocking July lawsuit that CBS Radio and Entercom condoned a “frat-house”-like work environment. The Post last month reported exclusively on the suit that claimed WFAN radio host Joe Benigno tried to pressure her into having group sex with his wife and a prostitute.
Benigno retaliated against her when she rebuffed his overtures, according to the suit.
Benigno’s lawyer has denied the allegations in the suit.
Lockwood worked at WFAN from 2006 through July 2017. Entercom closed its deal to buy CBS Radio on Nov. 11, 2017.
Following the suit, Entercom suspended Benigno and launched an internal investigation.
Since the initial report, six former employees across different CBS Radio units have come forward to The Post to back up Lockwood’s claims that the company had an “anything-goes” culture that ignored complaints about powerful men creating a hostile work environment.
