Andrea Tantaros Leaves, Sues TRN

Andrea Tantaros

TRN syndicated morning host -- and host of FOX NEWS’ “The Five” -- ANDREA TANTAROS has sued TALK RADIO NETWORK for fraud and breach of contract, THE WRAP reports. YESTERDAY, she sent a letter to TRN terminating her agreement.

In the suit, TANTAROS alleged that TRN Pres./CEO MARK MASTERS made several false statements to recruit her for a radio show, promising to invest millions of dollars into promoting TANTAROS’ new show to the approximately 300 local stations with which it had syndication deals. She later found that "TRN had sued one of its biggest syndicators (which TRN itself claimed in its lawsuit controlled 95% of advertising revenues for syndicated radio talk shows) several months earlier, which she said was not disclosed to her."

What's more, TRN had "laid off most of its staff and many others simultaneously ‘resigned’ from their positions, including, and critically, most of Defendant TRN’s sales team." The laid-off staffers who worked on TANTAROS’ show were replaced by members of MARK MASTERS’ family.

The suit continued: "Plaintiff TANTAROS found herself in a situation wherein she no longer had a competent executive producer, a full-time call screener, a paid assistant, or a sound effects manager, and further, had either no guests or only decidedly ‘C-list’ quality guests, was provided with no research for the third-rate guests that were booked for the TANTAROS Show, a lack of sufficient research for the topics at hand, provided with no editorial guidance, and she was expected by Defendant TRN to basically produce her own show.

“In addition, there no longer was any meaningful sales force to sell her program to advertisers or potential advertisers and there was no affiliate relations staff at Defendant TRN to service the needs or the requests of the TANTAROS Show’s affiliates.”

TRN CEO MARK MASTERS is preparing a response ... stay tuned.

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