The Josh Innes Show - Jimmy Kimmel: Martyr

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Over the weekend I read many stories and posts about Jimmy Kimmel being a Free Speech hero. This is truly baffling. Again, you can say whatever you want. But, there are consequences. I've got plenty of experience with this in my own life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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looks like all the Jimmy Kimmel stuff is going away and that the liberal people will find like a new topic de jour to focus on. But I'm still mystified by how this guy has become this sort of hero, this sort of like symbol of a freedom of speech being stripped away from people. Like, we've talked about it. And we talked about it last week when this was going down. Jimmy Kimmel was not fired because he was critical of Trump. And Stephen Colbert was not fired because he was critical of Trump. These people were fired because they just weren't worth the headache. And let's get into that. Let's play a couple commercials and we'll get into this. I feel like I am qualified to discuss this on a smaller level, right? I've never been on network

television and I've never made $20 million a year, but I've had some pretty high-profile gigs, right? You know, working at WIP in Philadelphia in the world that we're in is a high-profile gig. I've had some very high-paying gigs, like at 790 in Houston, where I made more money-based salary than I've ever made than probably ever will make, right? So I've had some big gigs, right? And here's what I have learned. First of all, let me start here. The argument that people have been making about Kimmel, and the argument that Trump is trying to silence his critics and blah, blah, blah, I think is bullshit. Because if your argument is that Trump's using his power to cancel everybody that disagrees with him, well, these people have disagreed with him for

10, 12 years. They all don't get fired. It just so happens there are two people that happen to be in a dying, decaying field and genre of television that were easy to dispose of. But we'll get into that. But like, Saturday Night Live has been shitting on Trump forever. They do it every week. Last time I checked, there's still an episode of Saturday Night Live every week. They

crush him. So why is it just Jimmy Kimmel and Colbert that got fired? Why, why hasn't Trump used his power to silence CNN? Why hasn't he used his power? Why hasn't he been able to cancel all of these people? Like, they still exist. So, but anyway, why I'm kind of uniquely qualified?

to discuss this, at least on a smaller level. So one of my big things I've dealt with in my life as a radio guy is I've dealt with teams having issues with me. And this is kind of a similar kind of setup here. Teams, when they are on a station, there's an expectation that you are going to be fair to those teams. And in some cases, it's different. Like in Philadelphia, they know you're going to shit on them some.

Like, they expect you to shit on them. They expect you to be irrational. They expect you to say dumb shit about the team. because it's Philadelphia, and that's what you have to do. In Houston, it's a different expectation, particularly on 790. The Rockets didn't want to hear any of your negative shit, and the expectation is that you were not going to say a lot of negative shit, and that's why a lot of the people that were on the radio were also employed by the Rockets,

so you wouldn't hear a negative shit, right? Like, it was an expectation that they didn't want you pissing off the teams at 790. And, no, I think it's not as terrible as I make it sound. Like, I mean, you could say some shit. But, like, I got into a lot of issues with them, and I was making a lot of money, and there was a lot of drama surrounding me in the station, and there were people that didn't like me, and there were a lot of factors. I did not generate the ratings and revenue that was required for someone to remain employed. Like, do I think I was given every resource? No.

Do I think I had good guidance a lot of the time? No. Like, there were factors that were involved that I think hurt the show big picture. sure. But look, there were some things I did. We've talked about this many times. I shouldn't have got on the air and shit on Charlie Pallello the day that I took his job. But I never looked at things fourth dimensionally. All I looked at it is, okay, some listeners would be pissed off, who cares? I didn't think about the fact that, hey, when I get on here and say this shit, there might be people here that are good friends with them, and they may not want to associate with me. One of those people was one of the biggest salespeople they had there and wanted nothing to do with me.

And I had to send him emails, and I had to send him all sorts of shit and say, dude, what do I have to do? I need you on my side. What can I do? And he's like, I'm never going to be on your side. I think your show is terrible and you're not good. And a lot of that stems from me shitting on his buddy. So it was never going to work out. Like, I don't forgive that.

Back to our forgiveness thing, I do not forgive that guy for being immature about his job. But he didn't have to help me. And he didn't. So whatever. But when you're making what I was making, which the whole show was getting paid probably combined over like $300,000,000. when you're not generating, you're not worth it anymore, right? You cost too much and you're too much of a headache and sometimes you're just not worth the headache. And one of the final things, like the final thing that I remember happening before I got whacked,

even with all the drama, they had talked to me about a new deal at 790. Even with all of the drama and the Super Bowl shit and Clanton getting the fire, all this stuff. They still offered me a new deal. They said they wanted to get to work on the New Deal. Right after that, I decided to go to L.A. and almost admittedly look for a job at one of these conventions. But then the final thing that happened, and I got fired not long after this, is I was in an office with one of the bosses there, two of the bosses there,

and they were talking about something about Sean Salisbury and about him being lazy or something. So I texted Sean, I'm like, you know, they were talking shit about you know, about how you're lazy. And he got all pissed and he reached out to the. them about that. And then like a couple of days later I got fired. I think they finally got to a point where they're like, we just don't want to put up with this fucking guy anymore. Like there's too much shit here. He's not worth it. And look, to their defense, I agree with them.

Looking back on it, I probably wasn't worth it. I think the show was really good. But it wasn't making any money. And I was making too much money. So, and I was a headache. And they had to deal with the teams being pissed off about the shit I would say about. And like, I don't forgive them in the sense that like i think it was a mess of a situation that i had no real guidance in but to their defense what the fuck are you going to do with some guy that's constantly pissing people off all the time and no one seems to like him and he's not generating any revenue the show has no ratings which by the way it still doesn't none of those shows in houston do but um you know this guy's getting paid way too much money for what he's generating and you get fired like as someone

who's been in this long enough i get that like i know that people want to spend things as free speech Oh, I had all the free speech in the world. I can get on the radio and shit on the rockets every day and shit on these teams. And look, if I thought it was justified, I'd still do it now. But I look back on it and I'm like, Josh, you made all this fucking money and, like, you lost your job because you fought with a shitty basketball team that big picture no one gives a fuck about. Like, what were you doing? You know, like, I think about those things a lot. And like, back to the point of free speech, which all of a sudden liberals love freedom of speech, strange.

They wanted to make sure you couldn't walk in the H-E-B, you know, before 6 o'clock in the morning. And if you did, you had to follow little lines and shit, you know, during the COVID. But, hey, I mean, freedom of speech. Freedoms. We're all about in liberty and freedom. But they're in a dying medium. Guys like Colbert, not even a dying medium. Television, I don't think it's a dying medium.

But the genre of television they do is a dying genre of television. It is late night. It costs a lot of money. I mean, just look, each of those dudes were making, like, what, 15, 20, $20 million a piece? So those dudes are making $15 to $20 million. They're getting paid like their Johnny Carson. They're getting the results of Chevy Chase.

And they are easily expendable. They are looking for a reason. I guarantee you if Jimmy Kimmel were generating giant sums of money, they would have gone to bat for Jimmy Kimmel and said, go fuck yourself. We dare you to do something. But he's not worth it. Tell me what about Jimmy Kimmel, who's now a martyr to these people, Tell me what about Jimmy Kimmel was worth it.

I guarantee you those shows weren't generating money. They weren't making a profit. They're super expensive because not only are you paying the host of it $20 million a year, you're paying the entire staff. They are expensive shows to run. And they're not making the money they used to. Carson used to clean up. The Tonight Show was like the most profitable show on NBC forever.

And ain't anymore. Why is Jimmy Fallon still employed? Well, Jimmy Fallon probably doesn't generate a ton of revenue either, but Jimmy Fallon ain't at risk of having the FCC fucking blow your ass off the air. He's just there. And who knows how long he will be? But he's there and he's harmless and he's not going to cause you a headache. And you can deal with it.

If you're ABC or CBS, you've got these dudes who've basically turned what are supposed to be comedy shows into Rachel Maddow. And it's just not worth the fucking time. It's not worth the headache. And in the two times that I got five, really, I guess I've been fired three times. And in each one of those, I can see a scenario where I wasn't worth the headache. I think the St. Louis one was a disaster. But like at WIP, let me tell you that. You know what?

When you're worth the headache, you get suspended. When you're not worth it anymore, you get fired. The Jason Kelsey thing got me suspended because I was still doing big things and we were still doing well. and they wanted to sign me to a long-term deal to keep me on the afternoon there like I was still killing it so it's easy to go okay we're going to suspend him because we need him

by August they didn't need me anymore because I was dead so anything I could do that they were looking for an excuse to fire me they found one and they got rid of me and didn't have to pay me that's how these things work like maybe I'm just a little bit more self-reflective now you know that I'm older or whatever

but like I even saw Bill Maher, who's like, well, you know, ABC caved on my show, you know, 24 years ago and blah, blah, blah, like, yeah, cool. But like, you are allowed to say whatever you want. But there are always consequences to that. And if you piss off the wrong person, that is not a violation of your freedom of speech. If someone doesn't want you around anymore, if you piss off the wrong person, that is not your, like, just like WLLZ is not my person. platform. I'm on it. I don't own it. I'm basically borrowing that from somebody. Just like I borrowed 610 or I borrowed WIP. Somebody owns that. And if the person who owns that is like,

you're not the person we want representing you, then what the fuck am I going to do? Oh my God, my freedom of speech was violated. Oh, what about freedom of speech? That ain't it. That's not how these things work. But of course, these guys have been made martyrs and heroes and everybody's got their, like, merger and FCC conspiracies and shit. If those guys were making their company's money, like, take ABC out of it and just look at, like, just look at the two ABC, CBS, like these. If they were making huge bucks, they would not have fired these people. But they're not. It's not worth it.

They could throw on some bullshit reruns of Charles in charge and be fine. Put modern family reruns on and live. they can't they're just not going to be successful in that like they're probably not going to replace these shows with actual people because it'd be dumb just accept that you're you're eliminating a huge cost now and just run something at midnight and and move on but jimmy Kimmel is not some free speech here like the fact that like he's like saying things like I needed to have the important conversations brother you're a fucking talk show host you're a comedy talk show host you are not there to have important conversations

and people do not come to you for important conversations or maybe they did at the end and maybe that's why your number sucked because the only people tuning into you were people that were wanting your important fucking conversations you're a comedian cut the shit with the important conversations leave the important conversations for fox news and CNN go make people laugh And if you're doing funny shit in the form of, like if you're doing those in the form of comedy, then great. But you weren't. The number of times this dude just went out there and was doing fucking political shit. It just wasn't funny.

Be funny. But they can't. They don't have that ability because they're so fucking warped mentally by this shit now. And they probably get drunk on social media people telling them how great they are because they're, you know, sharing the same political beliefs they do. And then they just bury themselves. And in 20 years from now, those dudes may look back on and go, fuck, I had a late night talk show. I was a Johnny Carson and I couldn't get out of my own fucking way. I bet they'll look back on that.

They won't say it publicly, but they'll look back and go, boy, I sure miss getting, you know, millions of dollars in checks every month. I miss getting paid two, three, four million dollars a month to do nothing. They'll miss it. So anyway, more to come.