There was more terrible radio on WIP yesterday. A day after the Eagles’ first win of the season, Josh Innes made it all about himself again. In an exchange during the 3 p.m. hour, Innes broke the fourth wall or got so meta or whatever and complained about how his boss, Andy Bloom, encourages him to bait callers, because the measure of a good show is callers or something similarly inane (like if I wrote posts for the .1% of people who comment). Spike Eskin, program director and, I guess, on-air babysitter for Josh, disagreed and explained what really drives ratings in sports talk radio. [Listen to the exchange around the 30:00 mark here].

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I agree with Josh [thanks to Jim on the transcribe]:

Josh Innes: What I’ve become is a jamoke who does a radio show for callers instead of listeners at this point, and that’s why I hate myself. I used to be decent at this. There was a point that I used to be decent at radio until I came here and it became about baiting for freaking phone calls. Evidently that’s what works. If we’re being completely honest, I used to care about the listener, not the caller, but now it’s all about the caller. So you gotta get those phones ringing or the show is no good according to Andy Bloom who is somewhere M.I.A. I have no idea where the guy is. Never around. I don’t know where he is. But that’s the whole schtick. Gotta get those phone calls going. If people don’t call, you’re not doing a good job. But that’s never how I used to program a show.

Let’s try to entertain the 99.999999% percent of people who will never call a show. But this is what it’s about now. Not that I’m making up opinions because I’m not, but you gotta really hammer it home there. Make sure people call. Because it can’t be oh let’s go out and laugh and have it good time, it’s gotta be ‘this guy doesn’t know about sports, this guy sucks, this guy blows,’ take a bunch of phone calls. So there, that’s the reality of it …

Spike Eskin: You’re wrong. It’s not negativity that gets people going, it’s conflict and strong opinions, and you know that. We had a disagreement and that’s why people called because they had opinions on our disagreement. If you don’t like it, then go, leave. I’m serious. Then get out. Go. If you can’t handle it.

JI: Oh don’t give me the ‘if you can’t handle it.’

SE: It’s the truth! It’s ‘oh, woe is me, woe is me, woe is me’ it’s the truth.

JI: Whatever, man. Okay, then you can do the show.

SE: Either do it or don’t do it, it’s not my job.

JI: Then do the show. But you begged to be on the show.

SE: I begged?

JI: Yea, and now you wanna sit here and paint … whatever.

SE: No. I mean if you wanna do the off-air show on the air, you ask me all the time what do I think, what do I think, what do I think.

JI: I do.

SE: You all the time ask me and I tell you what I think. And I tell you I think a lot of that advice and a lot of that criticism is usually spot on. People like conflict, they like disagreement. That’s what sports is. They go to bars, they go to Chickie’s and Pete’s to argue with their friends. Not so everyone can sit around and say the same thing. That’s what they like. It’s arguing about sports. That’s what drives this, that’s why we’re here. So whether they’re callers or not callers or Andy or not Andy, it’s just like that’s what it is. It’s not negative. Sure, can you lie and troll people, and get them to call? Sure.

[Let me interject for uno momento here. The irony from Spike is so thick. I had nothing against him for some time. In fact, I think we got along somewhat through Twitter and on the few occasions we met– once or twice doing Great Sports Debate. He’s a decent guy. Opinionated, but a decent guy. And though I’m all for a good disagreement, it pretty much sent me over the edge when Spike jumped all over me a couple years ago on Twitter over something I wrote about the Eagles (pretty innocuous, if I recall) and accused me of not believing what I was writing or writing just to stoke conversation. Here’s an Eskin – son of Howard – a rampant tweeter, accusing someone else of bombastry, as if the entire sports media landscape didn’t exist almost entirely on that premise. So please, let me enjoy this moment where Spike, who unintentionally proved Josh’s point, completely acknowledges that there is a belief in sports radio circles that trumped up bloviation is “what they like.” This is why podcasts are better.]

JI: Sure, I thought that was the point.

SE: Who told you that was the point?

JI: When I got hired here that’s what it was.

SE: When you got hired here. Two years in. That’s what we’re talking about. When’s the last time you talked to Andy about the show? I don’t even care what Andy says about the show.

JI: Alright.

 

Josh is 100% right. Playing to callers – to get calls – is the opposite of good radio. It’s measuring success by appealing to the lowest common denominator. It’s disingenuous nonsense, which lights up the board but bores listeners with even a flicker of a light bulb in their heads. But go on, Spike, explain to us all the key to successful sports talk radio. This show is bad, and I predict it fails by Week 9.

Related: Richard Rys on Josh Innes in Philly Mag this month.