The Josh Innes Show - More WIP Drama Part 1

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Seemingly everyone in media in Philly is cashing in on this Angelo/Howard criticism of WIP. Howard appeared on the Dan Sileo show and talked about being canned and what's wrong with radio.. I'll bite... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Medcan. Live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. All right, let's see here. I don't know why this continues to be a thing with like media beefs and shit. All of a sudden media beefs are the coolest thing ever. Back in 2015, 2016, back when I was doing it, people would judge you for it. And I was like, ah, I can't. I believe they're talking about everybody else on the radio.

And now, like, all these websites that would shit on me for doing it, again, are getting the clicks off of it because that's what you do. I was used for clicks back in the day. And now Howard is being used for clicks in Philadelphia. And these dudes are beefing in New York and all this shit. Not that I certainly did not invent the concept of radio beefing with people. I'm just one of the many who's done it. But, you know, back in the day when I was doing it in the, you know, two.

2014, 15, 16 in Philadelphia. Oh, you would have thought it was the scummiest thing ever. And oh, my God, can you believe he said this about the Cous? And can you believe he said this about Mike Misenelli? And oh, my God, what a terrible human. Now people just sop this shit up. Maybe it's kind of the Trump effect. I don't know.

So apparently Howard, because this is what they're glomming on to, I guess, with like these shows. So now you've got Howard talking about how, like, his whole thing came to an end of WIP, which I'm certainly interested in. So let's break a little bit of this down. He was on with Dan Cilio. Look, I don't know why. I get addicted to this shit, maybe because I'm in it, and I like to see if it's bullshit or not.

But let's play a couple commercials and get into it. In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees earn an average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields. like software development and information technology. Learn more at aboutamazon.ca. All right. So let's turn this on and listen to Dan Sillio talking with Howard about radio, I guess.

The title of this video is Howard Eskin on WIP, stab me in the front, not the back. Let's see. Making money and trying to write the financial ship of a business. hey, there was a TV station in Philadelphia. The news director was there for 18 years. He walked out the door and nobody even knew he was gone. 18 years and he walked out the door and he was gone and like, they're not even saying anything.

It's like television is in television news. Again, like Howard's not breaking any news here. I think the thing that I also find interesting is now there's this fight between radio dudes who are now podcasting and dudes who used to have jobs. and radio. They're fighting with each other over how healthy radio currently is. I think that's my favorite beef that's currently going on is radio has never been healthier. Like every station where there's some sort of beef, like WFAN, and maybe I'll dig up that audio too. But on WFAN, you know, it was the Gio, who I think's wonderful. I like Gio. He's a friend. And this Brandon Tierney,

who seems like a PUD, you know, he's talking about how the station is struggling. And then you got Craig Carton comes in and says, this is the strongest we've ever been at WF. in, which there's no way that's fucking true. Like, I guarantee you in 1992 or 1993 or 1994, 1995, 1996, in the heyday of the radio station, you were doing much better than you are now. But I'm also not one of these doomsayers, you know, these people that are out there, like, you know, radio is a total dead entity, because I don't believe it is. I believe it's viable.

I just believe it's about the way you approach it. I think it's a dead entity when you're playing 12 songs an hour whenever entertainment. And you can get me into this and look, I'll do whatever they need me to do. I'm a good team player and I don't dislike anybody. But you're not going to win, particularly in the mornings. I mean, look, you're going to play music in the middays and the afternoons. I get that. And I get it.

But in the morning, you're not going to draw in any real listeners by just playing a shit ton of music. It's not going to happen. That's never going to be the case, especially in a format like classic rock where you're playing, you know, like eight songs is what are scheduled. I'm scheduled to play eight songs, right? This isn't a top 40 station where on average, I'm going to guess those songs clock in at less than three minutes. I would guess the average length of a top 40 song that you'd hear on your hit music station in town. I'm going to guess that song clocks in at like 247 or something. Like on average, it's probably 247.

So you could play, in theory, 10 songs and you're still only playing, you know, 20 minutes of music. You can play 10 songs, all right? in classic rock given the day i don't schedule any of the music it auto populates and it kind of shifts from day part to day part so a song that played yesterday in the way in the midday frame could play at midnight the next day you know it's just kind of how it works they alternate so people don't catch on right so here's the issue though the issue is in classic rock i would guess the average classic rock song that plays on radio while it's gotten somewhat short shorter because we're adding more 90

stuff so you're getting more offspring that's shorter stuff and you're getting some of that. A lot of it is five, six, seven minutes. Like today I played like a seven and a half minute Ozzy song, No More Tears. Or I played like a six minute comfortably numb, right? So I'm going to

guess the average length of a song on a classic rock radio station is four and a half minutes compared to under three minutes in a top 40 station. Yet we're still scheduling the same amount of music to play on the two, right? So in a given day, you do the math. Let's say you're playing even 10 songs on a top 40 station. You're going to be looking at 22 minutes of

music, probably, maybe a little bit, 22, 23 minutes, even 10 songs. Then you're going to play probably 20 minutes of commercials, and then you've got talk time. Well, here's the issue I run into if I try to play all of these songs, which I've been trying to do lately just to see if it's possible. I like on a given day if you average four and a half minutes per song and you're playing eight of them even if it's just four minutes eight 16 24 let's see four eight 12 16 20 24 28 that's 32 minutes of music even without like if it's four and a half so let's just say on a short end eight songs you're averaging over 30 minutes of music if you play all the songs. Then you're probably on average playing 17 to 18 minutes of commercials. Okay. So you're doing 32 minutes of music plus eight, just go low end, 17. You're talking 49 minutes at that point.

49 minutes of commercials and music. You have 11 minutes with which to work. That is one segment on a talk show. And you're doing that once an hour. And you're breaking that up. So each segment to fit in, you're probably talking. 40 seconds at a time. Like, I am not of the belief that that is successful.

It's never what I'm going to believe. Now, part of that's because I'm a person that's driven by personality, and that's kind of my vibe, and I've been a talk show host. I don't believe radio is a dying medium at all. I believe you have to reimagine it, because at the end of the day, it's still audio. So if podcasts are crushing it and you're like, well, podcast are crushing it and all that is is audio, absolutely. Just reimagine it.

You know, I get that you have to play commercials. This is still ad-based income that you're getting. No one's paying for this. It's free. And I think people accept that, you know, I mean, no one's ever going to pay for the radio because they're already paying for Spotify or they're already paying for Apple or whatever. So you're not going to get people to pay for this. So I also get that you're going to have to play commercials to make up for it.

But you've got to give people something in between those commercials that isn't music that they want to go to. And I don't know how sexy it is for someone to go listen to a morning show. podcast that over the course of four hours ends up only being 35 minutes of content. I don't think that's successful. I think there's a lot of smart people involved in it. I'm not a doomsayer.

I don't think radio is going to go anywhere. I don't think it's going to die. I'm a believer in it because, again, it's spoken word and it's audio. But spoken word is what makes it. That's the most important part of all this is spoken word. People are tuning in for personalities. And yeah, you'll get the old heads that yell about

You know, we play more music. Those are the people you're trying to weed out. You don't want the people that are coming to your morning show to hear a song they've heard 400 times. They don't mind. And by the way, I don't mind if a morning show plays a couple of tunes. Like, I kind of like not having to be dependent upon to provide 45 minutes of content every hour. It's kind of a relief. But we should be in a position where your morning shows are playing only, you know, a handful of songs every hour.

You know, it should be to break up the monotony and, like, kind of reset. that is essentially. It should be, it should act as a commercial, but an entertaining one, basically. But you know, I, that's, but that's me. But anyway, so I'm not one of these doomsayers. And I know that guys like Howard, you know, Howard is now like on the doomsayer kind of thing because he doesn't have a gig and, and so he's out there. And like, he just apparently learned that podcasts are a thing and they make money. And that's this new information that he has unearthed on one of these websites. And by the way, I say all this with peace and love, because Howard is true. one of my favorite people. And he's

texted me a couple times. I don't know if he wants me to come on the pot or not, but I'll get text from him. And I would assume he'd know that if I came on there and get some level of attention, because that's all that people care about in Philadelphia is the Eagles and Media Beef. That's the only thing people give a shit about. But that's Philadelphia. Philadelphia,

who was I talking with about this? I was talking about the guy who's a programmer in Philadelphia. Programs the talk station there. A guy named Greg, who's a friend of mine. He was there when I was there. He's been there forever. But I didn't really talk with him because PhD was a floor above us. They were on, I think we were on the fifth floor, or they were on the fourth. They were on the fifth when we were

down in Old City. And so I never really talked to the guy. He was just the producer for Rich Zioly at the time. I think he was the program director's kind of, you know, right-hand man, whatever, whatever the whole situation was. But so I never saw him, really. I would talk to the program director on occasion, a guy named Jared, who's a nice guy. But I never really talked with Greg, but then I've been talking with Greg a little bit because I'm fascinated by the, just how, you know, talk works. And Philly's such a unique place. Like, I have no desire to live the entirety of my life in a world of cold weather or whatever. But like, because I, you know, in a preference, like if I had my preference in life, I'd be down there, you know, you know,

kind of near where I grew. We've talked about this. You know where this is. You know, I'm more of a southern guy. I think my personality is more of a southern guy. I think my vibes are a little bit more southern, whatever that means. And I was talking with him about this. And Philadelphia is truly the one town where radio still matters, like really matters, where you're a celebrity. Now, Detroit's kind of like that. I'm like Mojo, who's on the top 40 station.

He's wonderful. He's a friend of mine, and I like him a lot. I went in to pick up some, you know, pick up some of the, I was picking up wings, is actually what I was doing. I was picking up wings at a place. And the guy who ran the place is a guy I knew. and he tells the girl working the register. This is Josh from WLLZ.

And I'm like, oh, that's funny. That's me. Hi. She goes, do you know Mojo? Like, so, like, there are people who are radio celebrities in Detroit. But the radio is not a talking point like it is in Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a big deal. Radio still matters.

And I forgot who I was telling this story, too, but remember in 2013 or whenever I got to Philadelphia, the end of 13 at the beginning of 14, you'd cross the toll, the bridge, whatever, What bridge is that? The Ben Franklin, that's the toll, that you would go into Camden. And you'd cross and you'd see the little toll booths and shit, you know, whichever bridge had the toll booth. There was a toll booth somewhere, okay? And there was a Whipplemount Wednesday, Opie and Anthony sticker on the toll booth. Like Philadelphia, we talk about this a lot, and I say it as a term of endearment because I've softened up a lot on Philly over the years.

And I just don't harbor the same grudges and resentment that I used to harbor. you know, at previous times in my life. I just, I'm not that way. I mean, look, I still hate a lot of shit and I get mad about a lot of shit. And if someone pisses me off, I'll still, you know, but I'm 39. I don't get super pissed about a lot of shit anymore about radio shit. I just kind of accept some stuff. And, you know, you look back on it and you're like, why I have beef with certain people?

Like, if the Cuzz walked in today and hung out, I'd be like, I don't mind this fucking guy. Like, who cares? Like, I didn't dislike him when I got there. He disliked me. There's a lot of people who I might have had issue with that I don't dislike on a personal level. But only in Philadelphia would you still see a Whipplemount Wednesday bumper sticker on a toll booth? Might still be there. I don't know.

But that's Philadelphia, right? That's the kind of city that is. So that's why they continue to talk to people like Howard and why this media beef grows legs. And now there are a lot of websites dedicated to media beef, like awful announcing, which is basically like, hey, we're talking about media beef or Barrett Media. We're just talking about media beef. And what people have, you know, learned is that this gets attention. Wow, who knew that you got attention by talking shit about the other guys? Who would have thunk it?