The Josh Innes Show - WIP Clickbait Radio Is At An All Time High

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

I don't listen to WIP. I see things on Twitter. I'll react to things on Twitter. Jon Marks retweeted a post mentioning that the WIP morning guy doesn't believe Jalen Hurts is one of the 11 best Philly athletes right now. This is obvious trolling/clickbaiting and I find it to be sad. Of course, I'm now having twitter interactions with McDougall's. Most of them are on my side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And deep down in places I don't talk about at parties, I didn't want to be back there anyway. Not that I wouldn't want to live there, and not that I wouldn't want to be around the people, because I think that I'd probably have somewhat of a bond with many of those people like I did when I was there, you know? Like my regret about that not working out is that I do feel like there were a lot of people there and the vibe of some of the people weren't totally my vibe. But I think we had a relatability factor and

that I was just an average normal dude, that I think there was a relatability factor that was involved in that and you know, I and they're passionate about radio and, and I think that would have been a fine experience. You know, if I would have been there for the last decade, who knows what I would be? I would be a huge star there right now, but part of it was I never wanted to be a huge star there

because I didn't wanna do the things necessary to be a huge star there. One of them is make shitty radio, right? And you can say I'm an elitist, or you can say I'm a snob about radio because at the end of the day, it's just sports. So who cares if you get on the radio and lie about something and you're full of shit.

And I have no qualms with hey Stephen A Smith wanna go be full of shit, whomever wanna be. It's just I don't want to do that. That's not what I enjoy. And you can say I'm an elitist, you can say I'm a snob, you can say I'm pretentious, holier than thou, think very highly of myself, whatever. I never want to be someone that goes on the radio and just has bullshit opinions for the sake of drumming up phone calls. And that's essentially what Philadelphia is and that's how these guys are taught to do it. And look, part of the blame has to go to the Philadelphia people.

The people consume this. Like if the ratings weren't good, if like if the ratings weren't great in Philadelphia, there would be no reason for them to continue it. They would try something different. Obviously, people consume Philadelphia Sports Radio and the people who consume Philadelphia Sports Radio seem to love to react to bullshit topics even though they seemingly based on my Twitter feed today know that the topics are bullshit and know that the opinions are bullshit. I don't want to operate in a world like that because I don't think that requires any sort of talent. That's why I would do the bits with the trolling and everything to expose just how ridiculous all this shit is.

But whatever. Why am I talking about this today? Well, my aforementioned Twitter feed is filled with Philadelphia people, good and bad, negative and positive, about something I posted about some shit that WIP is doing. We'll talk about that here after these words. and after spending the playoffs all over the Pick 6 app from DraftKings, well, we're ready for the championship round and this is your last shot to win some real cash before the season ends. The simplest way to get in on the action is downloading the Pick 6 app from DraftKings and it's super simple. Just pick more or less on the stats for two or more of your favorite players and boom, you're in the mix for big cash prizes. Now your picks and you're heating up. Pick six brings upside with payouts up to 500 times.

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the gambling of someone close to you please contact connects Ontario 1866-5312600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. So what is WIP doing? I don't some I guess it's like a week of lists or something. I'll give them this. They find ways, and this is a spike type of thing that I think it's a spike spearheaded thing. At least it was in the past. He's not the program director there now, so I don't know how much input he has on anything. But considering that he programmed WIP and WFAN, I would imagine he has some input, which has to make it kind of weird for the program director there like you wonder if At some point it's just gonna be spike as the program director when they have to start whacking more people to save money Which all of these companies do my god, I am

Like some of these companies are just pumping out some really bad morning shows and putting them on in multiple cities and it's like whoa But an Odyssey is not a well-run company it is a poor company and they're not well run they're not Beasley poor but they're not well run and they're dumping a lot of shows they're taking shows and dumping them in five six seven cities and music formats and these are not good shows but anywho it must be awkward though for the program director of WIP to be the boss of the former program director of WIP and WFAN. It's got to be somewhat odd, challenging. But anywho, that's not the issue. So they do these list things and they're basically WIP is one giant clickbait.

And I guess to a degree I have to respect it because they all can pull off something I cannot allow myself to do, which is do full of shit click bait bullshit radio. That's why when we had to get web hits in Houston, I always did the bit where I just asked my listeners to go click on the story because we needed web hits and that's kind of how like we could get a bonus and everything, but I'm just posting this shit knowing that it's going to get web hits and I hated doing it. I felt icky doing it. That's why I turned it into a bit and we would send Nick, our intern out there to watch this big board that would show how quickly people started clicking on these stories. I enjoy doing that kind of stuff.

I don't enjoy bullshit and again if you think I'm being pretentious, you think I'm taking it too seriously, that's fine. I want to get on the radio and do shit that when I look if you think I'm being pretentious, you think I'm taking it too seriously, that's fine. I want to get on the radio and do shit that when I look back at it, I'm like, that was pretty fucking funny. And that was a good idea. And one thing I do get and see a lot from people in Philadelphia is once I when I get something that's got some traction, like today, I'm getting a lot of Philly responses about this WIP post. But that's again, not why I did it. I don't care. I

don't seek this shit out. I think that's the other thing people think because some of the negative comments I'll get from people are oh you're just bitter talking about WIP I'm like look I See if I think I think I follow John Marx I think I do and I saw John Marx retweet something about what they're doing and then I commented on and it led me down a wormhole of you know around this rapid fire posting and I'm getting responses from people and most of them are positive posts right so it's fine but when you get people saying shit like oh you're just bitter and whatever

no I'm just offering an opinion on something you can off like say you're divorced from someone and you've been divorced for 10 years and she's happily married you've got your kids and you share custody whenever you see like the stepdad doing something you think is stupid, or they made a mistake doing something that doesn't mean you're bitter, it just means you observe something that you think is stupid or they're doing poorly and you react to it. But of course, people will view

everything I say if they don't like me, they view it through the lens of, oh, you're just bitter and you hate WIP and they fired your sorry ass and blah, blah, blah. So it is what it is. Whatever you do cares. But what they did was they had all their guys have a list of the 11 best athletes in Philadelphia right now. I don't know what the criteria is. It's just the 11 best athletes in Philly right now. And this guy Joe DeCamero, who's the morning guy, I have nothing against him. Like, I don't think

he's particularly good, but I don't think their lineup is particularly good. So it is what it is. But like, these are guys that were over at 97.5 didn't do anything at 97.5 and then get called up to WIP and now it looks like they're fucking G's, you know, but, you know, they didn't have real talk, they didn't have to go in. Now, if there's one part that I'm not bitter, but I'm like, Hey, go do this and see how you fare. How about you get to WIP in 2013 when the station's kind of on a downward

trajectory, some day parts are actually losing to 97.5. All the sports fucking suck. And that's before the big boom of social media and everything and really brought sports talk and everything up. Like go do that and go do what I did. Go do what me and Tony did and the other guys did when we were there. You couldn't do it. Like I'm not knocking you. You couldn't have done that and I know that and my fans that I have in Philadelphia know that.

Like it's just it's that like some things they might sound arrogant, but some things are factual. I do not believe and I don't mean this is a knock to Jody Cameron. I don't mean this is a knock to Joe DeCamere and I don't mean this is a knock to what's his name that does the midday show. This is a knock to those guys. They could not have gone on WIP at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014 and really in 2015 did what we were doing because there were no sports to fall back on and people just were not interested.

So that's that but part of what this Joe DeCamara did in his list as he left off from the top 11 athletes in Philadelphia he left off Jalen Hurts which is an obvious move to try to get people to react and that's why you do all of this shit and part of me the big part of me should just say Josh who gives a fuck it's supposed to be entertainment it's supposed you do all of this shit and part of me, the big part of me should just say, Josh who gives a fuck? It's supposed to be entertainment, it's supposed to be generating a response from people, they're doing their job, if you would learn how to do that maybe you wouldn't be out of it. Like I tell myself this kind of shit but it's like sometimes the troll, sometimes the shit you're doing is so obviously a troll that it can't even be debated, therefore it looks stupid, therefore like it has to be

called out and that's what I was responding to was John Marks called that out, right? And like there's no way that the guy who's been to two Super Bowls and won one of them for a city that when I was there was just starving for one. There's no way that anybody in that city does not view Jalen Hurts as and now I'm not trying to argue this point. I don't want to get into the debate and get myself pulled into this like a total dickhead and Delco falling for

this shit, but like anybody with a brain knows that the guy who's won you your second Super Bowl and has been to two of them, that guy is not only in the top 11 of your best players in town right now, he should be number fucking one. Does that mean he's the most talented guy you have? No. Is he a better football player than Bryce Harper at his best? Is this a baseball player? No. Is he as good of a football player at his best as Joel Embiid was at his best as a basketball player when

healthy? No. But it's not about just who's the best player in terms of who's the most talented. Who is the best athlete right now? And sorry, it is a football town that people care more about the Eagles than they care about any team in that town and he just so happens to be the starting quarterback that's won you a fucking Super Bowl your second ever in your entire existence and you want to tell me he's not one of your 11 best players? Like anybody with a brain would look at that and go, well this is an obvious ploy to get people to react to this shit.

Now, when I say that the reaction I get from Philly people is, oh, something. Is, oh, that's rich coming from you. Or, oh, good message, but the messenger is the wrong guy to deliver it because all you were was a troll. Really, I wasn't. And not to be that guy, but if you go back and look at my track record of opinions on things that happened when I was there, I was pretty accurate about most of them. See, there's a difference between being the guy that'll say the things that other people don't want to say and being the guy that's clearly just making shit up to try to drum up conversation. And Philly is a drum up conversation, take phone calls, yell at clouds, town, right? That's what Philly is. And it's been made that way by the shitty media. But I never got on the air and said I'm

going to say this opinion because I know it's going to piss them off and they're going to call. I had honest opinions. Maybe I deliver them in a certain way that sounds better on the radio and might use this word to punch it up a little bit. But the opinions were always true. When I got on the air and I said that you know I think the best quarterback in the NFC East right now is Tony Romo. It's not Nick Foles. And by the way, Nick Foles hadn't won shit up to that point. And neither had

Tony Romo, but I thought Tony Romo was better. Oh, you would have thought I said the most vile thing ever. No, this guy's just saying this to get a reaction. I'm not. Just because you as a group of people believe your shitty quarterback is the best quarterback doesn't mean it's true. You know, when DeMarco Murray, when they traded for DeMarco Murray and everybody was like, oh, but he's great running out of the shotgun. That means he's gonna do well in Chip Kelly's. Yeah, because he ran out of the shotgun like 20 times all fucking year. Like those kind of things. But people would view those as, oh, you're just being, you're a hater and oh, you're just this and oh, you're just trolling.

No, I turned out to be right in a lot of those things. But things I won't do is get on the air and be like, hey, watch this. And the times I did it, I was telling you I was doing it to make a point that usually came after someone called and said, oh, you just make shit up to get people to call. And that was that's that was where that was born of. The troll thing happened in the spur of the moment. Somebody called and said, you're just a troll that's saying shit to get people to call. I was like, you're so fucking dumb that you wouldn't know what I

was saying that was a troll or not and I will tell you that I'm trolling and you won't know it's a troll and you people will still call and argue about it and I will tell you when I'm on the phone with you that I'm making up the opinion and you will still argue it. And that's where that came from. I don't know. I just I don't want to be in this sports media universe of of making shit up like that. Like if you if you want to put Jaylen hurts at like fifth or six like to me that would be it. Okay, that's debatable. Jaylen hurts not being one of

the best athletes in a town that's got shitty basketball, shitty hockey, okay, you know, good baseball and a Super Bowl team. Like, come on, like it's obvious. So when shit gets obvious, that's when I get annoyed by it. And granted, people buy it and people consume it. So what do I know? Maybe I know nothing. It's quite possible that if people keep eating that up, maybe they like it. Philly is a weird place that likes to be mad. They like to argue. And then I'm getting messages from

people like, Jalen Hurts still hadn't proven anything. Okay, cool. Oh, do you think Jalen Hurts is top 10 in the league? I don't, but that's not the argument. The argument wasn't, hey, is Jalen Hurts an elite NFL quarterback? I mean, he's been to two Super Bowls. I'll tell you this, there's a lot of your little guys that you think are elite NFL quarterbacks who sure as fuck haven't done that. Allen, Josh hasn't been to two, but people suck him off like he's the greatest thing ever. And by the way, if you put them up against each other and said you can have Josh Allen

or Jaylen Hertz to start your franchise, every NFL GM would take Josh Allen. That's fine. That's not the argument. If you want to have a separate debate, which they do every other day about whether or not Jaylen Hertz is elite, go ahead and have the debate because he's look he's been to two Super Bowls. He's won one and multiple time MVP Lamar Jackson hasn't done that Josh Allen hasn't done that and Joe Burrow hadn't done that. All these guys that we blow consistently. So the argument would be like you see a top 10 NFL quarterback, probably top 10. Is he one of the five best in the league?

No. Well, how can he be the best in Philly? Because that's not the argument. The argument is who are the best athletes, the most popular athletes, the dudes in Philly right now, and sorry, the quarterback that won your second fucking Super Bowl is one of your best 11 fucking athletes. So, the fact that one of these dipshits would leave them off the list is obviously what you're doing. It's obvious.

So then I get myself into these debates with these guys. I handle them a lot better than I used to. It's not like I'm mad at any of these people and most of them get where I'm coming from because most of them agree, but then also most of them don't realize that they're just sucked into all of it too. It's gotta be a sad existence to just get angry over the shit that a dipshit

says on the radio, especially when the dipshit's full of shit. And then, like, imagine having to argue that on the station, like, Oh, boy, did you see that Joe didn't have Jalen Hurts on his list? What? What? How could let's get him on the air and debate him on this. That gets so bad. Look, maybe they know more than I know. Because I'm the dude sitting in his underwear in his bedroom talking about it and they're the ones on the air that have 20 shares.

So they may know a lot more than I do. That's very possible. But I just, I don't get it. But that's felt like part of the blame is on the people who just consume this shit and yell about it and like want to be angry. Anywho, more to come.