The Josh Innes Show - Radio Behind The Scenes

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

It's crazy to me that I'm sitting here in Detroit, at my house and in an instant I can be live in Salt Lake. I'm aware this may not be that impressive to some of you, but I'm still pretty blown away by it. Here's some more behind the scenes talk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yep, it's the most powerful iPhone ever, plus more peace of mind with your bill over five years. This is big. Get the new iPhone 17 Pro at TELUS.com slash iPhone 17 Pro on select plans. Conditions and exclusions apply. You know, it's kind of weird because I do these fill-ins in all these different cities now, I'm kind of back to doing that, and I've got a full-time thing I'm doing in Seattle, not Seattle, Salt Lake that I told you guys about. I think I'm actually going to have some fill-ins in Seattle and in Orlando and some other places, which is cool, you know, like it's cool to be on the radio in these places. It's nothing special.

It's nothing I'm doing that's amazing, just to be clear, right? It's not like I'm doing a full-on radio show. I'm just, you know, on the radio there, and it's cool, and it's nothing that I post about because who gives it shit? Like, I hate when people are like, hey, here I am. I'm syndicated tonight. No, you're just doing what they call voice tracking in some of these cities. But it's cool to do it, right? And I kind of like the opportunity to continue doing it.

But let me play some commercials, and we'll actually get into some stuff about that. So last night, I was doing this one in Salt Lake. And again, I had to wait for a late sporting event to end. And this game wouldn't end, so I eventually had to go to sleep. So I didn't actually put the stuff in. But it's cool to do this kind of stuff. and I dig it. But it's interesting because you kind of have to play a character, right?

Like, I don't get on the air. I mean, I get on the air. I say I'm Josh and I say go to my Instagram and all that stuff. But more so than when you move to a city and you're on every day and you kind of embrace it and you're, you know, you are who you are and you like the teams or whatever. Like, I get on these things and I'm so full of shit. But I'm full of shit because in my mind I'm playing a character in each of these places. Like the person that's on the radio is named Josh. but he's not Josh.

And I am aware that this, you know, he's named Josh, but he's not Josh. And by that I mean, and I know it sounds weird and almost self-serving and ridiculous. But when I'm on the radio on these places, it is my job to be the guy that these people want to hear from on the radio. The voice on the radio should be somebody that embraces what they embrace and what they like. Therefore, like a lot of the time I'll get on the air and I'll play a character. Like, if I'm on in Seattle, you know who I hate? I hate the Astros, right? And I'm rooting against Toronto in the World Series.

Or, I don't know, maybe they aren't rooting against Toronto. I probably should look into that a little bit more. But, like, I'm on in Utah, right? You know who I like the jazz? You know who I like the mammoth? And there's a part of me that feels phony about it, but mostly I don't because I'm not being me. I get this kind of opportunity to be this sort of character, right? So while it's me and the picture is me, I'm on the radio.

kind of embodying what I think that person wants to hear. So, like, in Utah, not only do I, am I like, hey, you know, we've won eight in a row, go mammoth, that type of shit. But, like, I'm talking about BYU and how they're ranked number 10. And I'm talking about, you know, the youths. And, like, it's kind of cool because there's no actual pressure to have to overly impress anybody. There's no pressure to have to, like, offer opinions that somebody may disagree with. I just get on the radio and I embrace it.

And there's a lot of people that do what I do on here. And some of them, I don't think, put forth as much effort into trying to learn about the city and talk about the city and embrace the city. But that's how I'm going to get more of these stations. That's my objective. My objective is to get on the air in these cities because there's money to be made in each of them. Not a ton, but if you combine a bunch of them, there's money to be made. And I'd like to make it. I'd like to have some of that money, please.

So that's kind of where I am now. But in theory, it goes against what I believe because I believe in being honest with people. and to a fault probably. I've missed opportunities and lost opportunities because I couldn't embrace certain aspects of certain places, and that's a mistake on my part, and I've screwed up in many instances, and we talk about that all the time. But it is cool. So for those who don't know, again, daily, I'm just doing seven to midnight mountain time in Utah. That's the only one I do daily, and then I do a Sunday night one as well in Utah, and I'm going to be doing some other fill-ins, probably a lot of other fill-ins for holidays and stuff like that.

But it's just kind of cool to get on there and just lose yourself in sort of a character, right? Like, it's kind of empowering in a way. I probably should have come up with a fake name. And I thought about that, too. I thought about the idea of just becoming a character full-on and giving it a name and, you know, all that kind of stuff, which I didn't, which I didn't do, obviously. But I just went with Josh.

But it would be cool. It's kind of just a neat thing to be able to do that. And I'm hoping that leads me to being on in some other places, right? Like I just keep fighting to get on in other cities. And I think the better you make it sound and the more local you make it sound. That's how Jilly makes all of her money. Jilly doesn't actually have a full-time radio job anywhere. She's on every day in Nashville and she's on every day in Harrisburg and she's on every day in Salt Lake City.

I think she's got three where she's on every day. And that's fine. but the way she hustles this thing is she's doing like those three every day most days she's got to fill in somewhere so that like I want to come in jilly because she has to learn a shitload about a bunch of different places and sound like she knows about it and sound like she's there and sound like she's embracing it like today I was on the air and for the first time I screwed up and said the wrong radio station and I caught myself and made fun of the fact that I said the wrong radio station but I did say the wrong radio station so that radio station is rock 1067

but this radio station is 106.7 Detroit's Wheels. So I'm coming out of a song and I'm like, Rock, I fucked up. But I kind of like to let you behind the scenes on how this whole radio thing works. Because it is fascinating. Like, in an instant, I can be, I can actually be live, I think, with this system I have here, if I want to be live, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about recorded. Now, record it. I can put something in instantly, and within like 30 seconds, it'll be available, and it will air in one of these cities. But I think I can even go live in any of these cities from anywhere. I think I have to have access to it back here, and they have to give me access to it.

But if I wanted to be live in Salt Lake City right now, if I wanted to go live on the radio, in theory, I think I could. So some of this technology is pretty badass, and it's fun, and it's fun to embrace. But, like, Jillie, she'll get on there, and she's in there all day doing this shit. Like during the holiday, she'll probably have 10 radio stations she's doing. And it's kind of overwhelming, but it's impressive to watch because she'll get in there. And she'll do her three main jobs, which again, are Harrisburg, Nashville, and she does a pop station in Salt Lake. All right. But then she'll also be filling in on a given night in Charlotte doing a rock station or she'll be doing a top 40 station here, pop station here.

It's pretty crazy to watch her do it. And she, I don't know. Like, well, I hear some of these people, I can tell you who gives a shit and who doesn't. I can tell you who's just collecting the however much money they make to do it, and then they move on. You can just hear it. Jilly ain't one of those people. She genuinely cares about what it sounds like, and I find that to be endearing, and I find

that to be awesome. Like, I think it's cool that Jilly doesn't just half-ass, it doesn't just mail it in, doesn't just recycle the same shit. Like, a lot of these people recycle shit from different cities and just change the name of the radio station. Jilly ain't doing that shit. She's out there like, hey, I'm finding unique stuff for. Salt Lake. I'm finding unique stuff. I'm reading the news in Harrisburg. I'm reading the news

in Nashville. It's pretty impressive to watch her do it. And I think that's what's gotten her all these other opportunities to do it. So while she doesn't have a full-time job, and while there's, you know, like we're not making the kind of money we used to make or the money I used to make and doing stuff, like she keeps getting all these gigs and they keep adding up to make it, you know, somewhat, you know, between the two of us to make it a livable thing. And I think that's pretty fucking cool. I don't know. I like to share these things with you guys

because I think it's fascinating to let you know how all this industry works. You know, like it's like last night I'm sitting in my house waiting for this hockey game to end and then I like, it's still wild to me. And I guess there's part of me that's just impressed and I find it neat how this stuff works that I'm sitting in Detroit

and I'm waiting for a basketball game. Like two nights ago I'm waiting for that jazz game to end so I can get on there and do a couple of what they call breaks in the music industry. a couple of breaks. And I can get in and talk about it. And within a nanosecond of me recording it and hit send, it is in there and ready to go. I think we talked about this, but the first time I was doing this, it didn't work that way. It took a certain amount of time. So when I was in Nashville doing the morning show and I was trying to get audio back to Detroit and try to do it in

real time, there would be times that I would do it at the wrong time, and I wouldn't get it there in time and I'd get bitched at because there was no audio. But what's crazy is when I was in Nashville doing the morning show in Detroit, the ratings for this show were exponentially better than they are now. Now I'm here and my ratings are abysmal. But my ratings were rock solid for this radio station. Apparently like the last month I was here before I left and went to St. Louis, it was the best ratings the show had ever had. It had gotten up to like number six or number seven, which for this is pretty good. You know, six or seven. Because now we're in 20th, and we're trying to build the thing, and we're trying to grow it, and we're doing the best we can, and we're trying to find different ways to do it.

But it's an uphill climb. I tell you guys that all the time, that it's an uphill climb, and it's tough. But it's going to happen. It's something that has to happen. We have no choice, but to have it happened. But I don't know. It's just, it's fascinating how this whole thing works. Like, if you would have told somebody 25 years ago, 30 years ago, that this is how radio works.

Like, yeah, it causes people to lose gigs in certain cities. that's kind of the way of it. A lot of things do it. I mean, the auto industry has lost jobs over the years because of technology. Just every line of work, they find ways to save money. How do they do that? They eliminate positions. How are they allowed to eliminate positions? Technology. The technology has gotten better. It has improved in a lot of these places. And does it sacrifice some local people? Sure. And that sucks. And I'll be one of them at some point again. At some point, I'm going to get fired again. We all get fired. But it's fascinating. It's just, fascinating how this all works. Like our person that's doing the middays on Detroit right now lives, I think, in like Grand Rapids or something. It's Jilly who's going to be filling in on this station during Thanksgiving. She's here. I don't know. I find it fascinating. And I think it's cool to let you guys in behind the scenes to know how all this works. So there you go.