Rich Shertenlieb announces his return to Boston radio

Rich Shertenlieb, half of 98.5 The Sports Hub’s wildly successful morning show for nearly 15 years until an acrimonious departure in November, will return to the Boston airwaves via an eponymous show on classic rock station 100.7 WZLX.

The Rich Shertenlieb Show will begin “soon,” according to an announcement the host made on social media. His arrival came the same day the station announced it will replace Pete McKenzie and Heather Ford in the morning. A statement thanked the two for “all the laughter, wild stories, and fun moments they have brought to Boston morning radio over the years. We truly appreciate them.”

Kevin Karlson, their cohost on WZLX since 2005, passed away in October.

“We have decided to close that chapter of WZLX,” the station statement read, declaring a need for a “new show to take us into the future.”

That will come from Shertenlieb, who came to Boston along with Fred Toucher from Atlanta, and hosted an afternoon show beginning in 2006 on former rock station WBCN. The pair transitioned to sports and the morning slot when The Sports Hub debuted in August 2009, and “Toucher and Rich” were a big part of the station’s rise — first past sports talk rival WEEI, then all of Boston radio.

Acrimony between the pair bubbled, however, at least partially due to Toucher dealing with a mass on his vocal cords in early 2023 that at one point was believed to be cancerous. It became unavoidably public in October when Toucher signed a multiyear contract extension himself after years of negotiating their deals as a duo.

Their split came a month later, when Shertenlieb — who accused Toucher in a meeting with station management of creating a hostile work environment — was informed after the show on Nov. 9 that he was off the program.

“Boy oh boy, are there a lot of things we need to talk about, the least of which including how non-competes are the worst and should be totally illegal,” Shertenlieb wrote in Thursday’s announcement, “but also about how much I’ve missed you and how I’ve worked every day over the last several months to put together this show and great group of co-hosts.”

Rob “Hardy” Poole moved from The Sports Hub’s midday show to become the second voice on the new “Toucher and Hardy” show, which began in January. It earned a 17.9 share in the ratings book for the first three months of the year, part of a 98.5 sweep of its three daytime programs and more than double the second-place 8.6 share for WEEI’s “Greg Hill Show.”