Boston sports radio juggernaut ‘Toucher and Rich’ breaks up

One of the highest-rated sports talk shows in the country is no more.
Fred Toucher announced on Boston’s 98.5 the Sports Hub Friday morning that his longtime co-host Rich Shertenlieb has left the program.
“Toucher and Rich” had been together for 17 years, and on 98.5 since the station launched in 2009.
The station’s parent company Beasley Media Group said in a statement to the Boston Globe: “We value Rich’s contributions to the show over the years. Beasley offered to renew his contract for multiple years on terms better than his existing contract. He never accepted. We wish him the best.”
“Toucher and Rich” dominated in the ratings for quite some time.
The program got a 15.3 share in the men’s 25-54 demographic — which ads in sports radio are sold against — in the summer book, compared to a 11.3 for its main competitor, WEEI’s “Greg Hill Show.”
That difference was the closest the two stations had been in the morning drive in years.
The Boston sports radio juggernaut ‘Toucher and Rich’ has broken up. Beasley Media Group
Normally the breakup of such a successful show would come as a shock, but the writing had been on the wall.
The outward drama began when Toucher had a health scare and lambasted Shertenlieb for not reaching out to see how he was doing.
Last month, the X account Boston Radio Watch noticed that Shertenlieb had migrated the shows’ social media accounts to become his personal domains, and Barstool Sports host Kirk Minihane revealed that Toucher had signed a new contract with 98.5 and Shertenlieb had not.
The “Toucher and Rich” accounts are now under control of Beasley, but clearly no agreement to retain Shertenlieb was reached.
On the show Friday morning, Toucher noted that Shertenlieb’s agent told his agent they should negotiate their deals separately, whereas previously they had negotiated as a team.
Toucher said they had a “bizarre” meeting together with management in the wake of their public dustup, but thought the “problem would go away” if he followed their instructions on how to behave going forward.
He also said that even though he had a long partnership with Shertenlieb, the two did not communicate much about life outside of work.
“I begrudge Rich nothing,” Toucher said, as covered by Barrett Sports Media. “I’m very happy about the 17-plus years we spent together. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
It is unclear who Toucher’s new cohost will be, and the new iteration of the show will begin early next year.