The Josh Innes Show - Kimmel's Big Ratings

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

The leftwing folks are rejoicing over the return of Jimmy Kimmel and his giant ratings. I'm going to guess we won't be seeing the numbers next week when all these people move on to a new cause to be angry about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So I saw that Jimmy Kimmel's return got big ratings, right? Bigger ratings than anyone on late nights ever going to have again. And I enjoy that there's a group of people who dick swing over this and, like, celebrate the fact that this guy's numbers were huge. And I want to be clear, and we talked about this the other day, I wasn't rooting for the guy to get fired. I'm not rooting for people to get fired from their jobs for talking. I talk for a living. But I'm also someone who's gotten fired over my thoughts, and I've never had anybody rushed to my defense. I never experienced that these super liberal people cared about freedom of speech when they were canceling me over jokes on a radio station.

So forgive me if I'm not, you know, waving a flag for Jimmy Kimmel saying, oh, poor Jimmy Kimmel if he would have gotten whacked. Like, I don't like that people get whacked for opinions, but it's also not your sandbox. It's somebody else's sandbox, right? Like, this isn't that difficult to grasp. Like, I was told by a guy on social media that I sound Fox Newsy when I talk about this shit. And I'm like, why does that sound Fox Newsie? I don't want the guy to be fired. I don't like him, but I also don't watch his show.

Like, that's what I find fascinating is when people, like, root for someone to get fired and someone they don't watch. If you don't watch them, then who gives his shit? Like, Jimmy Kimmel is so far out of sight, out of mind in my world. Late Night TV is so far out of sight, out of mind in my world, unless it becomes a news story like it was this last week plus with Kimmel or with Colbert. Other than that, I don't watch late night TV shows. They don't interest me.

I don't find them funny. It's super political, but not funny political. Like, I just don't care. And that goes for gut-filled and everybody else. But this guy was like, go back and listen. You sound like Fox News and, like, old man yells at Cloud. And I'm like, I don't think I do. Perhaps you just disagree with what I'm saying, thus it makes it sound.

I like when you're passionate about something and it turns you into Fox News person. Yes, because I'm sorry that Fox News has the market cornered on rage. I forgot that AOC or. Rachel Maddow or Keith Holberman are never enraged over things or the view are never enraged over things but sure fine I'm Fox News Guy yells at Cloud whatever

let me play a couple of commercials and we'll continue with AMX Platinum access to exclusive AMX pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side so being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime that's the powerful backing of Amex pre-sale tickets for

future events subject to availability and varied by race terms and conditions apply learn more at Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No.

And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web? Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn. More. Conditions apply. While other money managers are holding, Dynamic is hunting. Seeing past the horizon, investing beyond the benchmark, because your money can't grow if it doesn't move.

Learn more at dynamic.ca.ca. Active. Dynamic. Actively different. But I enjoy these dick swinging stories. First of all, I enjoy the dick swinging stories where these liberal people think that they change the world by saying they were going to. to cancel their Disney Plus subscription. Like, there are examples of people legitimately impacting things. And I think we talked about this the other day in the Fox News episode, as the guy put it. But, like, the people really did make a difference in the Cracker Barrel thing. Because Cracker Barrel actually changed something. Cracker Barrel legitimately changed their branding, their logo, and everything.

And people were outraged by it. Thus, Cracker Barrel changed back. That was a legitimate situation where people bitched. enough and the backlash was great enough that something that had changed was changed back. Jimmy Kimmel was never fired. If you go back and look at it, there were no stories that were from legitimate places that said Jimmy Kimmel was fired. It was Jimmy Kimmel is off the air.

He has suspended indefinitely, but there were no stories that said Jimmy Kimmel was fired. We all ran with the idea that he was probably going to be fired, and that was all on us and media people and dipshits like me speculating on the radio and on podcast that he was fired. He was never fired. So the idea that, like, people rallied to Jimmy Kimmel's defense, and that's why Disney was like, nope, we're sorry, we made a mistake.

Well, that's dumb. Because maybe they were never going to fire him. Maybe that was never the case. Maybe it was never even a thought that they were. I don't know. And then you got some people that are like, oh, so all you people that said that Kimmel wasn't worth it and that's why it was easy to be fired and that his

numbers weren't good, I guess you feel stupid. No, because I still view late night TV is a non-viable entity, and it's still an entity that's not going to be a huge financial thing. It could have very well been a scenario as these same people brought up when they said he wasn't going to be fired, that if they would have fired and they still would have had to pay him anyway, so they're like, fuck it, leave him on TV. I don't know. But apparently had big numbers in that first episode back. And I'm like, well, what did you expect to have happened? People love drama. You want some reality? So every time I post a podcast where I'm

talking shit about WIP or like when I post like when there was an opening for the job at 975 in Philly and I post like I want this job blah blah blah those are some of my most listen to podcasts when I just do a normal podcast and I'm like hey here's my thoughts on Sabrina Carpenter nobody cares I mean people listen like the people who listen to the podcast listen that's I'm not saying nobody cares but what I'm saying is it doesn't get the big numbers that drama gets like I was watching a buddy of mine Jared Stillman. And he had left, he had basically parted ways with his radio station in Nashville. And he launches a podcast. And I watched the first episode. And the first episode live, he's talking about how things went down. He's like, I want to tell the true story of how things ended at this radio station. And there's like three, 400 people concurrently watching. And for like a podcast, 400 people watching something live is a good audience for that, right? Like we didn't get that when we were doing Twitch.

We would max out a couple hundred. When we were doing the wacky shows on 97-5 where we were getting hammered on Fridays, we would get like a thousand people. But, like, you know, that's a good audience to concurrently have, you know, 350, 400 people watching. But that whole first episode, he's giving you the drama, spilling the tea, if you will, about how things went down at his radio station. And people eat that shit up. People love the drama. So I'm like, let me tune into the next episode and the next episode live and see how big the audience. and says. So, and I'm not trying to rip my buddy here. I think he would agree with you on this.

Like, he knows that that first episode, people are going to tune in because they want to hear you talk shit because people love drama. They're addicted to drama. And like, people don't even give a shit about radio and thus there's behind the scenes radio drama. That's why, you know, for years, the fucking crossing broad people kept doing stories about radio wars and shit, because that's the only reason people would care about radios if there's a war happening with radio. So the next day I tune in. I'm like, I wonder how many people. people are watching right now concurrently and it may have been like a hundred so it'd been sliced down by like a third by the third or fourth day there's like 40 people watching 30 people

watching live because there's no drama people just wanted the story of the one main thing they cared about and then they tune out that's not a knock on him that's just reality whenever i post shit about like here's my thoughts on something like some guy got fired in philly and here's my thoughts on it i get more listenership from that and it usually gets picked up by a crossing broad and they share the link and it gets more listeners. Then when I just sit here and go, you know, Drew Brees, is he a Hall of Famer? Like, you know, that's not going to get the same listenership as drama. And it's the same with this.

The drama factor and the curiosity factor is the tune-in. This isn't rocket science. And then I guarantee, and I don't know what his ratings were last night, but I bet they went down probably by more than half, maybe considerably more than half. And then by two weeks from now, maybe less, it'll regress back to what it was initially. are into it for a few minutes, and he's a hero of free speech and all this shit. Then two weeks from now, when he's sitting there talking to a random state senator, liberal person from Utah, then, you know, the numbers are going to go back to what they were. Like, it was great for him

in the short term, and it's made him a martyr, and now, like, he'll be a liberal legend guy forever. But if you start looking two weeks from now and they start looking at these ratings, they're not going to be up from where they were. And if they are, it'll be slightly. It'll be negligent. but it's not going to be some new thing that's changed the world for Jimmy Kimmel. These people are hot on something for a minute and then they're over it. The right-wing people were all hopped up on this Cracker Barrel story for a couple weeks. Now, do you ever hear anything about Cracker Barrel anymore? No.

And I bet most of those people are not going to Cracker Barrel. They talked about it for two weeks and were outraged by it and forced change at Cracker Barrel. We demand change at Cracker Barrel. How many of those people that were liking the posts on Facebook saying that, you know, Cracker Barrel are a bunch of fascists and their liberal propaganda and all this shit. How many of those people actually go to Cracker Barrel enough now to make it, you know, lucrative for Cracker Barrel? Probably not that many. Just like the same number of people who are like, I stand with Jimmy Kimmel and they'll watch once.

And then they're going to say, oh, this really isn't all that good. I don't really care. I need to find the next outrage bait to go nuts over. The next Trump thing. Like, I need to get outraged over Trump replacing this picture. of Biden with an auto pin, which, while funny, is pretty fucking stupid. But that's how these things work, man. People dig drama.

People like they love the behind the scenes. They love the details. They love the tea. But then once there's no tea and it's just kind of, well, here's the show tonight. Here's 21 pilots. Our musical guest tonight is 21 pilots. And here's Senator Al Franken. Oh, here's Chris Pratt.

Once it becomes that, it's just another everyday late night show that most people don't watch or care about. And they may see a clip of on social media the next day, right? That's how these things work, man. Like, you experience it in radio shit, you know? There's a tune in for drama. There's a tune in for behind the scenes. And then there's a shelf life for that. And then you kind of just revert back to what.

It's normal, right? And normal for Jimmy Kimmel. Like, I love that people dick swing over this Kimmel and they're like, oh, he's got huge numbers and blah, blah, blah. He really doesn't. Like, his number, like, those shows do not have impact anymore. Johnny Carson had impact, but you know what? He had impact because what the fuck else was on in 1977 at 11 o'clock at night?

Like, when we look back on that kind of stuff, like when people had a captive audience, I love when people like, when they talk about the World Series ratings in like 1982, like, okay well what was on in 1982 up against it like what was up against the world series how many channels did you have oh they had a 50 share we yeah they had a 50 share because there were six channels if that so what else we if it's 1983 what the fuck else are you watching other than the world series there's nothing else happening and there's no other channels you know if if baseball had to go up against 600 channels on the internet and phones 40 years ago do you think that half the country was watching the world series.

That's why I love when people spin that little yarn and like, well, we don't care about it as much as we used to. How many things that you cared about or allegedly cared about were because you were forced to by lack of anything else? Like Johnny Carson was great, right? Johnny Carson dominated late night TV, right? Johnny Carson was well compensated and his ratings were great and they generated tons of revenue. Like it made revenue, which is more important than ratings, by the way, is revenue. How much money do you generate for the network? But what if Johnny Carson, his entire career, were up against or was up against 500 channels and phones and iPads and sports betting and all that shit?

If he was, how many people would have been watching the Johnny Carson show, the Tonight Show? How many people would legitimately have been watching that? It certainly wouldn't have been what it was. Like, that's why when you look at these big numbers that things you say, oh, look at the World Series numbers, look at these numbers. Yeah, there was nothing else. If you take that exact series, Boston, New York, 1986, the highest rated world series, I think of all time, if you take that World Series and you put it in 2024, it would not have the numbers in it. And it wouldn't be closed.

Now, that's not to say, like, I think people cared more about baseball in 1986 than they do now. But my point is that you'd get similar numbers to what you get now. Time and place matter. Lack of other options matter, right? So Jimmy Kimmel will get this big number for a day, and then it'll go down sizably the next day, and then it'll go down sizably the next day until it gets right back to where it was. He's not got a new audience from this. That's the downer for him, is I don't think he builds a new audience out of this. And I don't think that these people, and a lot of these people that were outraged were not outraged because it's Jimmy Kimmel.

They're just outraged because it's a Trump thing. He's just the vessel. He's the vessel to Trump. It's not that they like Jimmy Kimmel. It's just the Trump thing. And that's the case with a lot of these people. All right, more to come.