The Josh Innes Show - You Have Too Much Hubris!

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

A listener has told me that I have too much hubris to land a job. I disagree with this. I'd argue I'm quite the opposite. My belief is that I know too much about how the sausage is made to truly enjoy radio success. Now, I'll let you know how the sausage is made. I share some mistakes I've made. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. See app for details. Hi, friends. So I was reading some comments from people on my Instagram post from yesterday. I posted the job posting for this morning show in Houston on The Eagle, the morning talk show host co-host job posting that I read you guys and yesterday and the people are commenting

and almost all of them are positive and come back to Houston we love it bro you're awesome this would be great I got a comment from someone though on Twitter and this person said you know I really like you but you're probably hurting your chances of getting any jobs with your hubris on your podcast. You got to stop having, you got to stop being so cocky. You got to be humble on your podcast or these people won't hire you. You got to get the job. Then you can be cocky. Like, well, I think you're wrong on that.

I don't believe I have any hubris at all. If you listen to me over the course of any of these podcasts, I'm probably over self-effacing and don't have enough hubris. Honestly, one of my biggest downfalls is I understand how the sausage is made in this radio world. And I understand that at the end of the day, I'm not all that important. The problem I have, or the, actually, it's not even a problem. It's a jealousy that I have of some of these younger radio people, like these disc jockeys, who are truly nobodies, yet they think they're big time somebodies and they think that their position talking up Sabrina Carpenter albums and singles makes them important when they're not really important. Like I wish I had that. I wish that I had the ability to walk in here and be like, yeah, I'm big shit. My problem is I know too much. That's what killed me partially at the radio station in St. Louis. I just know too much about shit. I know too much about how the sausage is made. I know too much about so many things in this world of radio that it's to my detriment some of the time, right? Like it keeps me from enjoying successes because if I have a success,

I'll go, yeah, but I know that if this person disappears, then that ratings, the one person can alter the ratings so much. Like I don't think that those people fully understand how fickle and how narrow the margins are for success and no success in the ratings game and radio, right? You're talking about one person carrying one of these little pagers that can alter the entire universe for you. A couple of years ago, actually over a decade ago now, I think, Bubba the Love Sponge was in Tampa, where he's always been. He was in Tampa and they had just launched the station,

and it was like Bubba Radio and shit. And he comes in and just gets these giant ratings. And he's going up against a dude he used to work with named Mike Culty. He went by Cowhead. Got a massive show on 102.5 The Bone in Tampa, which is a really cool radio station. It's mostly just hot talk.

Somehow Florida is the only state where they still do hot talk. And hot talk is not political. It's mostly just hot talk. Somehow Florida is the only state where they still do hot talk and hot talk is not political. It's not sports. It's just like, it's just general talk shit. And there's this gigantic, right? Like I have a huge station in Tampa. It's awesome. And I'm a fan of it, but he goes in and just starts getting these huge numbers right out of the chute. And people were like, there's something iffy about this. There's something very strange about how, you know, uh, you know, cowhead has these huge numbers or mike calta has these huge numbers and now bubba's come in and just like i mean just cleaning the floor i mean he's just wiping the floor with these people all of a sudden big numbers out of nowhere and anytime there's a big jump that quickly people are like okay there's. Well, it turns out there was something up. Someone had one of these pagers, the little portable people

meters or whatever they're called. There's little things that gather the data of what you listen to. It picks up the signals, like the audio is encrypted. So you hear the audio and this little device picks up the audio. Okay. And it tells you how long someone's listened. But by the the way you have to listen for a certain amount of time for it to even count it's it's a bogus type of system but anyway so um now they're changing the amount of time you need to listen for it to count but still so they found out that there was some guy who had like a couple of these meters now okay actually let me rewind this okay actually first let me play some commercials and then i'll continue this all right if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs you got to check out pick six from draft kings when it

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Limited time offer. See terms at picksix.draftkings.com slash promos. So actually, another piece of information about these meters is there has to be proof that you're kind of moving around and living a life like they can like read if these pagers have moved or whatever, right? To try to prevent you from like getting one of these and just leaving it somewhere and just play music, I guess, right? So somebody had put, I don't know how many meters it was, but they had gotten a hold of a couple of them. And again, we're talking about one or two of these things can change your fucking life. It makes you go from like a dude who's a nobody that nobody gives a shit about on the radio to seeming like you're the biggest shit on the planet with a 15 share in morning drive. Like one of these things can do that.

To give you an example, when we were in Philly, and they're weighted differently based on race too. So like if you're a black dude that's like 30 years old that has one of these things, your listenership counts for like 10 times what a white guy's was because that's how they was someone who was like a 35-year-old black dude that listened to the radio station all fucking day. I remember talking to one of the program directors and he goes, Josh, you would need 10 of the meter type people you have. You would need 10 white people carrying these things to make up for that one guy. I was like, this is fucking stupid. But that's how it works. It's a weird business. Now it used to just be, you would write down, you know, okay. Uh, I listened to Howard Stern in the morning. And then like when you fill out a diary and some markets still do that, some of the smaller markets still do that, but that's why promotion was such a big deal. That's why billboards and signs and name recognition matter.

That's why I don't think Stern would have been as big of a deal as he was in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. Because this new system came in sometime in the mid-2000s, like early to mid-2000s. And it killed a bunch of big-time dudes. Like dudes who were making millions of dollars, like base salary, million, million five a year in major markets that had huge ratings. They changed this to this new system and it killed them all. Like their ratings went from like cock of the walk to nothing overnight. So these people like in cities like Chicago, Boston, Houston, big Dallas, big cities across the country saw legendary dudes that everybody thought were the biggest shit on the planet. See their numbers crash and burn with this new system.

There were lawsuits over it. It was a big deal. I don't know that Stern would have been as big of a deal. Maybe he would have. Maybe he wouldn't have. But word of mouth was such an important thing. Like in some cities, you may only know one name of someone that's on in the morning, and it might be Howard Stern. You might write that down.

That's why attention mattered. Billboards, being all over TV, that kind of stuff mattered. Now it's not as important, but anyway, back to the story. So that gives you kind of a rundown of how these things work. I forgot exactly how many meters this person had, but somehow they got ahold of these meters and some guy like in his garage took these meters, put them on an oscillating fan, turned up the Bubba station, and just let them go. And eventually they found out that that's what happened, and that's why his numbers had gone up, and it basically just nullified that couple of months or whatever it was of ratings in the city.

People disregarded them once they found out this happened, and the idea was that Bubba was behind it. But my point is this kind of shit can be messed with, but it's kind of about knowing how the sausage is made and all of this stuff, right? So back to the original point of this, where the person says you have too much hubris, and it's going to turn off potential employers. What if they listen to your podcast and they hear you being cocky? I'm not cocky. I'm very self-effacing. I was talking to my dad on the

phone the other day and he goes, you know, you should probably stop shitting on yourself so much because if people hear you shitting on yourself so much, they're probably going to believe it. I'm like, oh, there's something to that. Like I'm not like a legitimately cocky person, but if there is something I think I'd be good at and there's something I think I would be better at than most, then I will tell you. That's why when I see an opening in a place like Houston, a city that I know, a city that I love, a city I have passion for, a city that based on reactions from people, I still get reactions there. They still use my name in news stories there. When I announced I was doing a podcast, we did the podcast about it where people were commenting on me doing a podcast.

It still gets reaction there, so it mattered. I'm not saying that I'm a big star or anything, but people know who I am there and I love the city. When I see a job opening that makes sense for me, I will explain to you why I should have that job and why I'm someone that would make sense for that job. As I said yesterday, there are a lot of jobs that I think I could do, but I don't think I'd be the best at it and probably don't

have a passion for it. Like I wanted to get the night job in Dallas, but deep down, I know that I probably wouldn't have been the right guy for that. And they just put on a syndicated show anyway. Now, if they would have come to me in this Dallas gig on this talk station and said, do the weirdest, wackiest fucking shit you can think of to get us attention at night, then I'd probably be good for that. If it's like, let's interest, you're like, fuck, I don't want to miss out on this. The reason I took the job in St. Louis, and we talk about this a lot, but the reason I took the job here is I was afraid that maybe they'd never want to hire me again and I'd miss out on the opportunity to work here. Not realizing that, oh, hey, dipshit, they're coming for you. So if they wanted to hire you two years ago, they'll want to hire you two years later. And that's where we stand now. Like they were going to have, like when they hired me two years ago and it's about the anniversary of that, like I think Valentine's day or something was the last

time I was on the radio in Nashville and it all came together really quick, you know? And if I would have told myself, Josh, if they want to hire you now, they'll still want to. They told me that on the phone. They said, well, we'll circle back in two years. And I was like, no, I want to come do this. Because, I mean, real talk, they wanted to bring me in to do mornings. But I was like, no, just to get there, I'll go do afternoons. And I told them that. I said, let me come in.

I will do afternoons. They're going to have an opening because they're going to move the girl that was doing afternoons over to the other station. I said, I want to be there. So I pushed the issue on it because I wanted the job because I thought this is the gig. This is a great company. This is a big time station. Fuck it. I'll go do afternoons there. It doesn't matter. It's a great situation that I'll probably be at for 20 years until radio dies. I can be there. Well, you know, here I am two years later, really 15 months later, I was out of a job there and it was the worst decision I've ever made. And that's coming from someone who's made some really shitty decisions. It was a bad decision and a decision that I shouldn't have made. I should have listened to my dad on that. There was another person that

commented because there were like multiple people on Twitter that were like, don't go get a job and then quit the podcast like you do everywhere. In fairness, the first run of that podcast that started in 2019, that thing went for, I want to say, close to four solid years without stopping. Like it had an audience and I kept doing it even in Nashville. That's where we started doing all the drunken pods or that's where we continued the drunken pods. So I think people overreact and say, oh, you just stop your podcast. That's not true.

But the guy goes, he's probably just messed up by his dad who's completely ruined him. So he just does everything to impress his dad. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe I would like to impress my dad. And that's why I took the job in St. Louis. That's why. Look, I come from a long line of people that want to impress people. My dad wanted to impress his dad.

I want to impress my dad. Do you want me to go see a fucking shrink about it? Maybe I will. But the point being in all of this is when I got this job, I thought, holy shit, this is going to be it. It's a great situation. My dad's going to be super proud of it. It's going to be awesome. And he was, but he also told me, maybe you shouldn't take the job. Again, the best advice I ever got that I didn't take was the second you take that job, that job is no longer available and neither is the job you currently have. Best advice I've ever gotten. And I've told you guys that story many times. My dad in Baton Rouge, whenever he was the big cock of the walk on the country station there, the other country station would try to hire him all the time. And I'd say, dad, why don't you just

go to the other country station? He says, because if I take that job, that job is no longer available. And neither is the one I currently have. And I said, holy shit, with the time it didn't register. Now it registered. This job would still be available. By the way, this radio station I work for just fired the guy that replaced me. Literally today, the story comes out that the guy got fired. The guy had been there for 30 something years. They just fired him. He was doing middays when I was on in the afternoon. They be there and i would and i by the way this

was a three-year deal i had here my deal in nashville was only two years so my deal would be up now like two years later this would be where my deal is up and they very well could have been reaching out to me about this situation now so and who knows maybe i was never going to work out here anyway unless i was doing mornings or had better management or people that had a fucking clue. Maybe it was destined to be a bad situation no matter what. And it probably was because deep down, I don't think I was the biggest issue this place had. You could say you're part of it and you were not a good fit and that's all fine. I believe with the right management and people that knew what the fuck they were doing, I think it would have had a chance.

I think it would have had a better chance than what it did. But when I would roll in, I would say, do you have any advice? What can I do? And it would be, oh, just go talk about tits. Give me better advice than that. Help me figure this out. I want this to work. But whatever. It is what it is, right? So all that said, it starts with the idea that hubris will keep people from hiring me. And I don't believe that because I'm only telling you what I believe. Now, there might be people who are threatened by someone who knows things and maybe they don't want to work with someone.

That's very possible. There are people desperate to keep their jobs and just hang on as long as they can. That's real. But if there's someone who truly wants to excel and be successful, they would want somebody like me on staff who multiple old bosses of mine have said, you're essentially like another program director. You're someone

that helps us. You're someone that gets it. Gavin used to tell me that. Andy used to tell me that. Hell, Jonathan in Nashville, like people who really got it and are good old school programming people liked having somebody like me around because I have ideas and I have a programming mind. People who were uninspired and didn't give a shit probably didn't like having me around, right? I understand that, but I know I'm an asset. So you can't just sit back when you're looking for a job and be like, I don't know, man. I don't know if I could help you. No, I can help you. I know how I can help you. I've listened to your station. I know how I can help you there. I've looked at your social media and I know what we can do to change that. I know you need to add video components to what you're doing. I know

that these are easy, simple solutions to modernizing what you're doing and making yourself more of a value or more of an asset and more of something that turns people on in that coveted person's 25 to 54 demo. I know that. I understand it. I get it. So that's an asset to you. That's not being cocky. Like, like when you're trying to like, like when you're trying to like get with a chick or something, do you just say, I'm all right. I guess I'm kind of good at eating chicks out. I'm decent at cunnilingus. No, you tell her I'm going to eat the fucking booty like it's groceries. Like that's what you got to tell them. Like no one's going to say like, Hey, I'll spread my legs for you. When you walk in and go, I guess I can maybe find the spot. No, you say no bitch. I'm going to get all up in it. I'm going to stand up in it.

So what's wrong with when being on a podcast, you tell people what you're actually good at and what you can do to help them instead of I mean I guess it'd be nice if you'd give me a job um I guess I'd do an okay job at it I'd be okay um I'd be fine like I like like we would like we may not do anything good but like it wouldn't be bad no you tell them I know what we can do to correct this I know what we can do to make it bigger and better and most importantly you tell these people what we can do to make it bigger and better. And most importantly, you tell these people what you can do to generate revenue, dollar dollar bills, y'all. That's what you tell them. You find ways to generate money for these people. You tell them how you can generate money. And that's the most important thing. You start telling them that, then they go,

oh, this is intriguing. But then you also have to have people who want to do this and people who want to be successful and people who aren't just sitting around waiting for radio to die to find something new to do. You have to have people that have passion. And that's why I should have never left guys like Jonathan in Nashville, who at least has a passion and still goes out and crushes it. That's where I made a big mistake. And not that I loved doing that job, but it was a good job and they liked me and I fucked up by leaving and coming here and now I've got to go shovel more snow. So that's my life right now. Anyway, we'll talk more.