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Jul 24, 2023

John DeBella talks retirement, the Howard Stern feud, and what’s next after he’s off the air

With his nearly five-decade career on the air coming to an end, 102.9 WMGK

With his nearly five-decade career on the air coming to an end, 102.9 WMGK morning host John DeBella still doesn't get the hype. After all, he's just been doing his job.

"Look, everybody has a job. This is my job," DeBella, 71, told The Inquirer. "I don't see any difference between me and a guy who gets up and digs a ditch every day. We’ve got our jobs. I just get to laugh a lot more at mine."

In turn, so has Philly — at least for the last 41 years of DeBella's career. A New York native, he arrived here in 1982, when he took up a job at 93.3 WMMR, pioneering the now-ubiquitous, personality-driven "morning zoo" radio show format. And since then, he's been an omnipresent figure on the Philadelphia radio landscape.

And on June 30, DeBella will call it a career, retiring from the radio business. That will cap a nearly 48-year run on the air, 21 years of which were spent at 102.9 WMGK. And although, in some ways, his job in radio is exactly that, it's one he loves, and will miss once it's gone. Primarily because of us.

"The hardest part of all this to give up is the people — the people around me, and the people that I talk to," DeBella said. "I like people. I love being able to communicate with them."

But one thing he won't miss communicating about? Howard Stern.

The pair developed a rivalry in 1986, when Stern's show began being syndicated in Philadelphia. DeBella dominated the airwaves at the time with his WMMR show The Morning Zoo, and Stern was obsessed with overtaking him — going so far as to hold a mock funeral for DeBella in Rittenhouse Square when he beat him out in the ratings in 1990, and having DeBella's ex-wife, Annette, who has since died, on his show following their divorce.

Stern has been a topic that has followed DeBella for nearly 40 years. And as DeBella put it: "At what point does this question stop?"

"It was a very early form of MAGA," DeBella said, referring to former President Donald Trump's political movement. "It's like, so let me get this straight: I’ve been your favorite radio show for all this time, and this guy comes along and he starts telling you lies about me. And you go, ‘Yes, that's true.’ I thought you knew me better."

The feud remains one of the strangest in the annals of Philadelphia pop culture history, though Stern, DeBella said, did eventually apologize. That came at a time when Sirius XM, where Stern has been since 2006, was working on a historical look back at the shock jock's career, and asked DeBella to participate. He did, with the agreement that he wouldn't be edited, DeBella said. That impressed Stern, who called DeBella to bury the hatchet.

"In his mind, I was holding him back from expanding his show, so that made it nastier and nastier," DeBella said. "But when it was all said and done, he called me at home one night, and he says, ‘It takes a really big man to do what you did. And I have to apologize for everything I did.’"

Still, he often gets asked about the dispute, and why he didn't fire back at Stern. Simply put, he said, he wanted to focus on entertaining his listeners, not selling newspapers by participating in the conflict. That would have only helped Stern, and he believed not retaliating angered Stern even more.

But taking the high road, he added, wasn't always easy.

"It's tough when there's 3,000 people outside your studio window celebrating your funeral," he said.

Now, though, that same city is preparing to mourn DeBella's impending retirement. And although losing his connection to his audience will be tough, finally being off the air will leave time for some other projects he hasn't gotten around to. Namely, standup comedy.

DeBella has a history in standup — most notably his time with the long-defunct Comedy Factory Outlet in the 1980s — and runs a production company known as DWI Television Productions. Although he isn't planning on going the club route, he does hope to continue to work with comics as he has on the air, but now through creating comedy specials.

"I have an entire TV studio in my basement," he said. "I just need a show to do."

It's either that, or woodworking. DeBella picked up that hobby recently, and creates such items as charcuterie boards and wine racks, which he posts on his Instagram, @john_debella_woodworking. He's working toward creating furniture from scratch, but getting to that level "will take some time," he said.

And sure, a woodworker or producer doesn't have as much fame as, say, a legendary morning radio man. But DeBella is looking forward to the day when he can be "another guy on the street."

"If you ask anybody who has any form of notoriety, most people will tell you that the only thing fame is really good for is getting a reservation at a restaurant," he said. "It's the God's honest truth. That's all you really can do with it. When it comes down to it, nobody gives a s—."