September 18, 2025 • 31 mins
John explains how Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension is part of the entertainment business
John talks about the fairness doctrine and how it made political commenting possible
John talks about how corporate mandates are part of the broadcast business
John talks about how he and Ken got suspended and what happened
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app. I have a
lot to say about this Jimmy Kimmel situation, and like
one argument doesn't create a divorce, one joke or one
comment doesn't get you kicked off the air. Whether it's
(00:22):
temporary or permanent, we'll see. But a lot of people
are saying, well, I heard what he said, it didn't
sound like that big a deal, because in isolation, it
wasn't that big a deal. It was a long relationship.
And I'll play the clip later. It's not really important
(00:43):
right now to what I want to talk about. And
I don't have any notes in front of me, or
any news stories or anything. I'm just going to share
with you what it's like to be in the broadcast business. Like, well,
Ray and I've been together over twenty five years now,
and Ken and I go, we're in it together for
over thirty five years. And here's how the broadcast business works.
(01:06):
Do you ever, maybe you're in an industry, right and
maybe your industry gets in the news for some reason,
and all of a sudden, you are hearing all these
people on television and radio talking about your industry, and
you sit there and go, they don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I'm sure people have said that
(01:27):
listening to us here, God, he doesn't know what he's
talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm in the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Sometimes I get, you know, emails from you, and I
appreciate them because maybe sometimes I don't know what I'm
talking about. I am like you right now, I am
listening to about twenty four hours of everybody talking about
the First Amendment and the broadcast industry, and I'm thinking, oh, man,
(01:53):
they don't know what it's really like. They don't even
know what the law is, they don't know what the
whole structure is. So I'm going to tell consider this,
you know, my little contribution to the public. Good AM
Radios started in the nineteen twenties. About ten twelve years later,
they came up with the FCC Federal Communications Commission to
(02:15):
regulate broadcasting, and the FCC licenses the owners of radio
and television stations. The broadcasters don't own the licenses. We
get them because the government allows us to have them.
(02:39):
So understand that everybody in broadcast, radio and TV in
effect reports to the government in a sense. Now cable. No,
they have no regulatory capability over cable. When we're in
regards to content satellite, no streaming, no Internet, no all right,
(03:00):
all those other forms of communicator, but broadcasting where you
have a transmitter and you're sending out signals into the air.
The public owns the airwaves, and the government is representing
the public and they're supposed to monitor the stations that
we're all doing something in the public interest. And it's
been that way for almost one hundred years. And when
(03:25):
I started in radio, I had to get a license
from the government to speak on the radio. I grew
up in New Jersey, and when I was eighteen, I
drove it to New York City and I had to
take a test and they gave me an official looking
certificate that I was now licensed to work at a
radio station. And one of the duties we all had
(03:49):
at the radio station was to go to this monitor
this receiver in the studio and we had to check
transmitter readings and we had to write them down. Let
me tell you, anybody who owned I worked at a
numb or small local radio stations. They were terrified of
the government, terrified of the FCC. And this is you know,
going back over thirty five years ago, they were terrified
(04:11):
of having their license revoked, of getting protest groups or listeners.
You know, every complaint letter a radio station or TV
station gets, you have to put them on file, and
anybody's allowed to come and look at the file.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
It's called the public file.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And whenever a station is up for renewal of their license,
they have to announce, hey, we're up for renewal, so
that those who want to block the renewal can and
people try once in a great while it even works.
So it used to be the people terrified of the FCC.
When I was starting out, every radio station carried news
(04:52):
all the time, whether no matter what music format you played,
news was always carried. The were community affairs talk shows
late Saturday, late Sunday nights into Monday morning. There'd be
a block of five or six hour public service talk shows.
There still are, and it was all to meet the
(05:12):
FCC requirement that we were providing. We were providing programming
in the public interest, very broad term, never clearly defined,
so you always knew that was there. And then after
cable and satellite and streaming and internet, the FCC relaxed
(05:33):
a lot of its rules, and people kind of forgot
it existed. I think in the radio industry everything became
very lase a fair. But over the years, various presidents
and administrations of both parties have tried to turn the screws.
Lynden Johnson in the nineteen sixties very unhappy with the
way that Vietnam War was being covered by the networks.
(05:54):
Richard Dixon famously went to war. In fact, he tried
to get a talk show host at the time, get
Caviot off the air. He's on tape as saying to
his aide, Hey, is there any way we can screw Caviot?
You know, maybe with a tax investigation or something of
that nature. There was something until the nineteen eighties called
the fairness doctrine, the fairness doctrines. There are hardly any
(06:18):
political talk shows before the late nineteen eighties. In Rush Limbaugh,
there was a reason for that because of the fairness doctrine.
If if you had a guest on and they had
a strong opinion about something, then you had to put
on the opposing point of view. So if you had
a somebody railing away about any issue or any kind
(06:39):
of political political candidate they're on for thirty minutes, you
had to get the opposition on.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
For thirty minutes. Then nobody really wanted to do a
show like that.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So what you had were Larry kingstyle talk shows where
they post when they would talk to celebrities or they
would talk to public officials, but only in a very
general way without any sharp edged opinion. Fairness doctrine was
repealed nineteen eighty seven, and that's why Rush Limbaugh exploded
(07:14):
in nineteen eighty eight, because now he didn't have to
give three hours of time every day to the opposition.
The station did not have to do it either. That's
why KFI existed. KFI became a talk station in nineteen
eighty nine, and Kenny and I got here in ninety two.
(07:36):
Bill Handel started going I think he was here going
back eighty eighty. Became full time in ninety three. But
that was the demarcation point, was the fairness doctrine. Up
till then, you weren't allowed to express opinions at length
unless you put on the other side. So this, you know,
(07:59):
and we've had activists come at us. As you may know,
during the Obama administration, there were there was a certain
uh there was a certain particular advocacy group and they
were going after us and many other talk show hosts,
both national and regional. And you know, to create created,
creating mayhem, and there's you just always have to be
(08:21):
aware of the environment you're in. And always there are
political parties involved under the service. There's always an administration
involved under the service. It's never gone away. And that's
for news and that's for politics. And we've broadcast stations
have always required to do certain programming at different times
(08:44):
over the last one hundred years. And Trump is now
gone full bore into that because and I know why
because they did a study a few months ago and
the three broadcast networks on their newscasts give him ninety
two percent negative coverage, and so he's he wants revenge.
(09:12):
Now you get into this murky area of Jimmy Kimmel, who
started out doing an entertainment show and turned it into
a political show. And a lot of these guys get
really harsh and political and they want to hide behind
the concept of like, well, I'm just an entertainer. Okay,
you're an entertainer some of the time, but you're a
(09:33):
political commentator at other times, and When you do.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That, now you're swimming in a whole different waters.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I got more to say, but I just want to
sum up this segment by saying, I don't think any
host should be pressured by the government over what they say.
I don't want to be and Jimmy Kimmel shouldn't be.
Nobody should be pressured by the government to say what
they want to say on broadcast radio or television. But
(10:05):
you do have to understand that the government holds the license,
and you do have to understand that. Let me tell you,
television executives are among the most frightened people in the world.
They got so frightened by the woke crowd five years ago,
and that's why you started seeing all kinds of bizarre
things on television. You started seeing shows about families where
(10:26):
it looked as if nobody was related to each other.
And that's because they were afraid of woke world. Now
they're afraid of Trump world. Television corporate executives are always afraid,
and they blow.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Up the wind.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
They're trying just to make money. And if you make
a lot of money, you have some protection. To stop
making money. You don't have protection. I'll get into that
when we come back.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know we're going to have on the show right
after two o'clock Steve Hilton, who's running for governor. In fact,
he polls the best among all Republicans right now, he's
in second place overall behind Katie Porter, the Democrat, according
to Emerson Polling last month. Steve Hilton, he's a former
(11:15):
Fox host, former advisor to British Prime Minister Cameron, and
he's also a tech entrepreneur. Will have him on because
he's filing a lawsuit, federal lawsuit to stop Gavin Newsom's
redistricting plan.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So oh, that's right after two o'clock.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But I don't keep talking for a little while about
this with over here Jimmy Kimmel in his situation, and
as I was finishing, and just to reiterate for just
joining us, I don't think any host on radio and
television should be pressured by the government, no matter what
he's saying. I don't get upset. A lot of people
get upset when they hear hosts saying something. If I
(12:00):
don't like a show, I just turn it off and
when I hear people upset with what we do here,
if I'm with an earshot of it, I'll just say, well,
just turn it off.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It's not meant for you, all right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
When I don't like something, I just say to myself
that was not intended for me. I'm not in the demographic.
Somebody likes it, it's not me. I don't get mad.
It'sn't waste my time with it. But I don't know
a lot of people are different. So when it comes
to Jimmy Kimmel, when you work in radio or television,
(12:39):
you're supposed to bring in revenue.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's your main job.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
You're supposed to bring in the audience, but the audience
has to lead to revenue. There are people who get audiences,
but those audiences can't be sold to an advertisement. And
there are people with small audiences who make a lot
of money because those audiences are very loyal, they respond
to all the advertising, or they are wealthy, whatever the
reason is. But primarily, first thing is you got to
(13:06):
be able to bring in revenue. Now, when I was
growing up, Johnny Carson was the obviously the king of
Late Night, and I loved watching his show, and I
loved watching Jay Leno and David Letterman over the years.
But Carson brought in seventeen percent of NBC's profits at
(13:27):
the time, and he used to get about seventeen million
people a night, sometimes more. I just said Jimmy Kimmel
his ratings. Kimmel's getting not seventeen million, He's getting in
one million a night, one million. There are three hundred
(13:48):
and forty million people in America, and three hundred and
thirty nine million of them don't bother to watch. Now
the million that do they enjoyed the show, that's great.
But if what they said about Stephen Colbert is true
that he was losing forty million dollars a year and
(14:09):
Kimmel has less than half of Colbert's audience, well then
I don't think Kimmel's making any money for ABC. And
there is something known as not worth it anymore too
much trouble. Broadcast companies, entertainment companies will put up with
(14:30):
a lot if they're making a lot of money off you.
And when you stop making money, it doesn't matter whether
you are right or wrong, or the advertisers are right
or wrong, or the host is right or wrong, or
they had the actives are right wrong, doesn't matter. You're
not making money, You're it's too much trouble, it's not
worth it. And that's where Kimmel is. If the numbers
(14:55):
are true and Colbert was losing forty million dollars a year,
I don't see how Kimmel is not losing something similar.
I have never heard of a time, and that's why
I still don't know if those numbers are true. I've
never heard of a time where a company would employ
somebody and give them a two hundred person staff like
Stephen Colbert had lose forty million dollars a year. I've
(15:17):
just said that that's unheard of to me, unless somebody
else was subsidizing it, or unless the parent company had
a political motivation.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
There's a lot of conspiracy theories, but I don't know
any of that. Someday I do, then it'll clear things up.
So my suspicion is that Jimmy Kimmel had a money
losing operation like Colbert, And my suspicion is that Jimmy Fallon,
who has even a smaller audience, is also a big
money losing operation. Because people simply don't watch broadcast television
(15:48):
at eleven thirty at night anymore, and the audiences have
plummeted in the last ten years since Lenno and Letterman
left the scene. These guys, for the most part, went
full political, full woke, anti Trump, pro Democrats, pro progressive,
(16:14):
and it got pretty vicious. And again I don't think
they should be kicked off the air for any of
those things. If you get an audience and you make money,
because if they were getting like if Colbert or Kimmel
were making the money that Johnny Carson made for NBC,
if they were responsible for seventeen percent of the profits,
they'd still be there. And Disney would go to court
or CBS would go to court and tell Trump to
(16:37):
go pound sand and there'd be a big fight. But no,
it's too much trouble. You're not worth it. That's the
situation he's in. And I have read so much and
heard so much nonsense from people who just don't understand.
This is not a the first I said this the
(16:57):
other day. The First Amendment means the government cannot prevent
you from expressing your opinion and cannot punish you and
take your freedoms away for expressing it. You the person,
but Jimmy kimillal go on a street corner and say
(17:20):
whatever he wants. The government can't do anything. But when
you're have broadcast licenses, you're in bed with the government.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's may be wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I said, nobody ought to lose their job because the
government puts pressure. But as I told you in the
first segment, everybody in broadcast TV and radio has been
living with this since the invention of radio and television,
and there's many incidents over the years. The comedy team
the Smothers Brothers famously got fired by CBS because their
(17:52):
comedy sketches were too anti Richard Dixon, too anti war.
There's always this tension of a perfect, pure world. So, yeah,
you have the First Amendment to say what you want,
but when you have a broadcast license at stake, not really,
And probably if the people at ABC were smarter, they
(18:16):
would have clipped out some of the comments, maybe urged
Kimmel to change directions.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Maybe he would have quit.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I don't know, but it was clear you were steering
into different waters. Now it just depends whether you want
to survive or not. All right, got work coming up.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Just a couple of more things because there were so
many angles to this Jimmy Kennel situation. Another major component
to this, extremely important is that ABC is a network,
but they only own relatively few stations themselves in the
big cities like New York, LA, Chicago own and operated stations,
(19:02):
but most of the affiliates are not owned by ABC,
and so you have to play ball with your affiliate owners.
And there is a company called Nextstar, which owns thirty
ABC affiliates, runs Jimmy Kimmel in all those markets, and
they had to get approval from the FCC firm a purchase.
(19:25):
They want to buy another television a company called Tenga,
and to buy Tenga you need approval from the FCC
because Tenga has television stations as well. And so that's
when they decided, or maybe they got the message that, hey,
(19:46):
you want this approved. You're running Jimmy Kimmel in thirty cities.
Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe they felt that way themselves. I
don't know. Another company called Sinclair, which is known to
be run by conservative executives, they also said they weren't
going to run Kimmel's show for the time being. Well,
(20:06):
now you've lost a big chunk of the country. You
have two major television companies for the smaller and medium markets.
But it's you know, covers a lot of territory and
affiliates get to say in all this. And again I
knew this firsthand. We were syndicated for a few years.
Now you don't really need to be because you know,
(20:27):
with the iHeartRadio app we're on in all fifty states
and around the world. But years ago, if you wanted
to go to other markets, you had to be syndicated,
and I would get calls from affiliates all the time.
And you have no idea how insane a lot of
people are who own broadcast stations or manage them or
holy I mean, there's a lot of crazy people out there,
(20:52):
and certain towns and certain markets didn't know what to
make of us. But you have to deal with them.
That's the business. You can't go, oh, I have a
First Amendment, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Stick. It just stick.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
It got to play ball with people the way the
world is. And then one more note on the fairness doctrine.
I mentioned that this was the law up until the
late nineteen eighties, where if you had somebody with a
controversial political opinion, you had to give equal time to
the other side. And that lasted, I think until nineteen
eighty seven, and then they got rid of it, and
(21:28):
then suddenly you had modern talk radio.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Rush Limbough and all the rest.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
The Democrats periodically been very frustrated with the political tilt
of modern talk radio, and they have tried to revive
the fairness doctrine. They never got it passed, but that's
what they wanted to do. There were definitely bills introduced,
and there were definitely strong statements made that they wanted
to dismantle a station like KFI, and they wanted to
(21:58):
dismantle similar stations and other cities. So spare me the
hypocrisy of all these left wing people howling about First
Amendment rights, because what they wanted to do was put
modern talk radio entirely out of business. They weren't interested
in the First Amendment rights of any of the hosts
(22:20):
or any of the listeners who chose to listen to it.
They just thought it had become too much of a
political force, too much influence, and maybe we ought to
write a federal law to get rid of it, which
is what they had basically until nineteen eighty seven, where
you really couldn't have a great exchange of political opinion.
(22:41):
So I know, I hear a tremendous amount of hypocrisy,
a tremendous amount of ignorance, people who just don't understand
how the world works. The FCC has always been the
daddy that broadcasters had to report to. There is no owner,
how big you are. You could be Disney, you could
(23:03):
be Comcast which owns NBC, the New CBS owners, they
all got to report to the FCC, just like I
was in nineteen thirty four, just like it's always been
because back then in nineteen thirty four, there was only
a handful of AM stations. There were no FM, no TV,
and they were afraid that crazy people would take over
(23:26):
the stations and have an extreme influence on the public.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And they couldn't allow that.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
So they had it highly regulated, highly regulated, the frequency
you're on, highly regulated, how many how much.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Power you have?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Highly regulated? Four until nineteen eighty seven. Your content, I mean,
I don't know. I was a kid, I'd be listening
to the top forty station New York, and every half
are they every twenty five minutes they had to stop
and run five minutes of news.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I don't want to hear the news. They do our long.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Newscast middle of all the hits. They'd run hours and
hours of public service programming on Sunday nights. I want
to do music on Sunday nights. I couldn't because the
FCC said so. So these people howling about the FCC,
howling about the First Amendment, you're just full of it.
It's never been that way for broadcasting. But everybody's used
(24:22):
to growing up in a world of internet streaming, cable, satellite,
where you can say anything you want.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
There are no limits.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Like I said the other day, people are very upset
with immigration law being enforced.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's because they.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Never saw it before. But the law has always been there. Well,
the FCC has always been there. It's just that for
the past thirty odd years, nobody there really cared very much.
But it was always there, and maybe you just didn't
grow up at a time over the last thirty years
where the FCC mattered, Well, it always did and now
(24:58):
it does again. And debate to the end of time
whether that's right or wrong, but it's not going to
change any time soon. And one more thing here that
just broke. Jimmy Kimmel was did not want to apologize
for his remarks and said he was going to double
(25:20):
down on going after Trump's Magi backers before they took
him off the air, because maybe it's time to play
the clip.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Could you play the clip?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And I'm probably only gonna play a few seconds of it,
But this is what he said the other night.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the
Magga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered
Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and
do everything they can to score political points from it.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
In between the freaks, you can stop it there. So
he was implied that it was a Maga guy who
shot Charlie Kirk. That was wrong, that was false, And
by the time he makes those comments, he should have
own that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Maybe he didn't know that. I can't tell you what was.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Going on in his head, and he wanted to go
back out last night and say more things about the
Maga crowd. What he said was false and it was
just really wrong considering what happened to Charlie Kirk. Charlie
(26:26):
Kirk didn't do anything, Jimmy Kimmel, And then when you
talk about the wife and kids witnessing the murder, that
was just stupid, and not to apologize, and then to
continue wanting to blame these imaginary MAGA supporters who shot
Charlie Kirk. I don't know what's going on in the
(26:49):
guy's head, but in this climate, ABC and Disney said
enough because, like I told you before, what I read
is true. Kimmel's ratings, he's only got a million people watching.
Johnny Carson had seventeen billion. Johnny Carson had seventeen percent
of NBC's profits credited to him. Kimo has no zero percent,
(27:12):
and it's probably believed based on Stephen colbert situation. Probably
he's losing tens of millions of dollars for ABC and Disney.
So why you would do that, I don't know. But
all right, now, that's enough for now. We'll talk more
about it. After three o'clock.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
After two o'clock, we're gonna have Steve Hilton on. Steve
Hilton is the leading Republican candidate for governor in California.
He's second in the overall rankings, behind the Democrat Katie Porter,
and he's ahead of the other major Republican in the race,
Chad Bianco. We've ever talked to Steve before. We're talking
(27:53):
to him on a specific issue. He's filed a federal
lawsuit to stop Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan. And you'll be
the first time you'll hear him. And he's a fascinating guy,
a fascinating background. He used to be an advisor to
the British Prime Minister. He's started a tech company. Parents
(28:18):
were from Hungary, he grew up in England. He came
to this country and he was a Fox News host
for about six years and he still as a commentator.
And I think he's got a lot to say that
you'll want to hear. And we'll have him on coming
up in minutes. You may be wondering where all these
people got their bizarre political beliefs from. Well, there's a
(28:43):
college back east called Oberlin College. It is the most
whack job, far left wing progressive college in the entire country.
And they produce women like Julia ju Xu. That's how
you say her name. And this is what she posted
this week.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
So the day after Charlie Kirk died, I was in class.
My teacher said, I'll give you five minutes for hot
takes about Charlie Kirk. I was the only person who
raise their hand. I said, I've been saying we need
to bring back political assassinations. I don't feel bad, and
I don't think that everyone deserves the right to free speech.
I think some people should be afraid to express their
opinion in public. So this class is literally about revolution
in China. All of our readings for this month, I've
(29:25):
been talking about how violent revolution liberated millions of people
at liberated women. And then our reading for that day
was specifically about democratic dictatorship, where Mao writes about, yes,
people deserve free speech, but there should not be free
speech for reactionaries and imperialists and capitalists and all these
people who are enemies of the revolution, because that would
reverse the progress that was made there.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We go, this is what's going on, not just her,
thousands and thousands of other students, and it's being taught
to them in these classes. And she was influenced by
her what she learned about Chairman Mau in China and
(30:09):
Listen to her resume. She's on the advisory board of
the campus group the Gender, Sexuality and Attraction Initiatives. It's
an office that supports queer trands and women's programming at
the school.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
He uses, she uses.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
They then pronouns and is a member of Students for
a Free Palestine. So there you got the hull jackpot there,
and she thinks we need to bring back political assassinations
so we can get our freedoms back. All right, more
coming up, We're going to talk to Steve Hilton, the
(30:46):
leading Republican candidate for governor. We're going to talk specifically
this time about the lawsuit hes filed against Gavin Newsom.
Federal lawsuit over Newsom is what he says is an
illegal and unconstitutional redish plan.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That is next.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI AM
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Can if I am six forty you're listening to the
John Cobel podcast on the iHeartRadio app. I have a
lot to say about this Jimmy Kimmel situation, and like
one argument doesn't create a divorce, one joke or one
comment doesn't get you kicked off the air. Whether it's
(00:22):
temporary or permanent, we'll see. But a lot of people
are saying, well, I heard what he said, it didn't
sound like that big a deal, because in isolation, it
wasn't that big a deal. It was a long relationship.
And I'll play the clip later. It's not really important
(00:43):
right now to what I want to talk about. And
I don't have any notes in front of me, or
any news stories or anything. I'm just going to share
with you what it's like to be in the broadcast business. Like, well,
Ray and I've been together over twenty five years now,
and Ken and I go, we're in it together for
over thirty five years. And here's how the broadcast business works.
(01:06):
Do you ever, maybe you're in an industry, right and
maybe your industry gets in the news for some reason,
and all of a sudden, you are hearing all these
people on television and radio talking about your industry, and
you sit there and go, they don't know what the
hell they're talking about. I'm sure people have said that
(01:27):
listening to us here, God, he doesn't know what he's
talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm in the industry.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Sometimes I get, you know, emails from you, and I
appreciate them because maybe sometimes I don't know what I'm
talking about. I am like you right now, I am
listening to about twenty four hours of everybody talking about
the First Amendment and the broadcast industry, and I'm thinking, oh, man,
(01:53):
they don't know what it's really like. They don't even
know what the law is, they don't know what the
whole structure is. So I'm going to tell consider this,
you know, my little contribution to the public. Good AM
Radios started in the nineteen twenties. About ten twelve years later,
they came up with the FCC Federal Communications Commission to
(02:15):
regulate broadcasting, and the FCC licenses the owners of radio
and television stations. The broadcasters don't own the licenses. We
get them because the government allows us to have them.
(02:39):
So understand that everybody in broadcast, radio and TV in
effect reports to the government in a sense. Now cable. No,
they have no regulatory capability over cable. When we're in
regards to content satellite, no streaming, no Internet, no all right,
(03:00):
all those other forms of communicator, but broadcasting where you
have a transmitter and you're sending out signals into the air.
The public owns the airwaves, and the government is representing
the public and they're supposed to monitor the stations that
we're all doing something in the public interest. And it's
been that way for almost one hundred years. And when
(03:25):
I started in radio, I had to get a license
from the government to speak on the radio. I grew
up in New Jersey, and when I was eighteen, I
drove it to New York City and I had to
take a test and they gave me an official looking
certificate that I was now licensed to work at a
radio station. And one of the duties we all had
(03:49):
at the radio station was to go to this monitor
this receiver in the studio and we had to check
transmitter readings and we had to write them down. Let
me tell you, anybody who owned I worked at a
numb or small local radio stations. They were terrified of
the government, terrified of the FCC. And this is you know,
going back over thirty five years ago, they were terrified
(04:11):
of having their license revoked, of getting protest groups or listeners.
You know, every complaint letter a radio station or TV
station gets, you have to put them on file, and
anybody's allowed to come and look at the file.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
It's called the public file.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
And whenever a station is up for renewal of their license,
they have to announce, hey, we're up for renewal, so
that those who want to block the renewal can and
people try once in a great while it even works.
So it used to be the people terrified of the FCC.
When I was starting out, every radio station carried news
(04:52):
all the time, whether no matter what music format you played,
news was always carried. The were community affairs talk shows
late Saturday, late Sunday nights into Monday morning. There'd be
a block of five or six hour public service talk shows.
There still are, and it was all to meet the
(05:12):
FCC requirement that we were providing. We were providing programming
in the public interest, very broad term, never clearly defined,
so you always knew that was there. And then after
cable and satellite and streaming and internet, the FCC relaxed
(05:33):
a lot of its rules, and people kind of forgot
it existed. I think in the radio industry everything became
very lase a fair. But over the years, various presidents
and administrations of both parties have tried to turn the screws.
Lynden Johnson in the nineteen sixties very unhappy with the
way that Vietnam War was being covered by the networks.
(05:54):
Richard Dixon famously went to war. In fact, he tried
to get a talk show host at the time, get
Caviot off the air. He's on tape as saying to
his aide, Hey, is there any way we can screw Caviot?
You know, maybe with a tax investigation or something of
that nature. There was something until the nineteen eighties called
the fairness doctrine, the fairness doctrines. There are hardly any
(06:18):
political talk shows before the late nineteen eighties. In Rush Limbaugh,
there was a reason for that because of the fairness doctrine.
If if you had a guest on and they had
a strong opinion about something, then you had to put
on the opposing point of view. So if you had
a somebody railing away about any issue or any kind
(06:39):
of political political candidate they're on for thirty minutes, you
had to get the opposition on.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
For thirty minutes. Then nobody really wanted to do a
show like that.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So what you had were Larry kingstyle talk shows where
they post when they would talk to celebrities or they
would talk to public officials, but only in a very
general way without any sharp edged opinion. Fairness doctrine was
repealed nineteen eighty seven, and that's why Rush Limbaugh exploded
(07:14):
in nineteen eighty eight, because now he didn't have to
give three hours of time every day to the opposition.
The station did not have to do it either. That's
why KFI existed. KFI became a talk station in nineteen
eighty nine, and Kenny and I got here in ninety two.
(07:36):
Bill Handel started going I think he was here going
back eighty eighty. Became full time in ninety three. But
that was the demarcation point, was the fairness doctrine. Up
till then, you weren't allowed to express opinions at length
unless you put on the other side. So this, you know,
(07:59):
and we've had activists come at us. As you may know,
during the Obama administration, there were there was a certain
uh there was a certain particular advocacy group and they
were going after us and many other talk show hosts,
both national and regional. And you know, to create created,
creating mayhem, and there's you just always have to be
(08:21):
aware of the environment you're in. And always there are
political parties involved under the service. There's always an administration
involved under the service. It's never gone away. And that's
for news and that's for politics. And we've broadcast stations
have always required to do certain programming at different times
(08:44):
over the last one hundred years. And Trump is now
gone full bore into that because and I know why
because they did a study a few months ago and
the three broadcast networks on their newscasts give him ninety
two percent negative coverage, and so he's he wants revenge.
(09:12):
Now you get into this murky area of Jimmy Kimmel, who
started out doing an entertainment show and turned it into
a political show. And a lot of these guys get
really harsh and political and they want to hide behind
the concept of like, well, I'm just an entertainer. Okay,
you're an entertainer some of the time, but you're a
(09:33):
political commentator at other times, and When you do.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That, now you're swimming in a whole different waters.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I got more to say, but I just want to
sum up this segment by saying, I don't think any
host should be pressured by the government over what they say.
I don't want to be and Jimmy Kimmel shouldn't be.
Nobody should be pressured by the government to say what
they want to say on broadcast radio or television. But
(10:05):
you do have to understand that the government holds the license,
and you do have to understand that. Let me tell you,
television executives are among the most frightened people in the world.
They got so frightened by the woke crowd five years ago,
and that's why you started seeing all kinds of bizarre
things on television. You started seeing shows about families where
(10:26):
it looked as if nobody was related to each other.
And that's because they were afraid of woke world. Now
they're afraid of Trump world. Television corporate executives are always afraid,
and they blow.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Up the wind.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
They're trying just to make money. And if you make
a lot of money, you have some protection. To stop
making money. You don't have protection. I'll get into that
when we come back.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
You're listening to John Cobels on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know we're going to have on the show right
after two o'clock Steve Hilton, who's running for governor. In fact,
he polls the best among all Republicans right now, he's
in second place overall behind Katie Porter, the Democrat, according
to Emerson Polling last month. Steve Hilton, he's a former
(11:15):
Fox host, former advisor to British Prime Minister Cameron, and
he's also a tech entrepreneur. Will have him on because
he's filing a lawsuit, federal lawsuit to stop Gavin Newsom's
redistricting plan.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
So oh, that's right after two o'clock.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
But I don't keep talking for a little while about
this with over here Jimmy Kimmel in his situation, and
as I was finishing, and just to reiterate for just
joining us, I don't think any host on radio and
television should be pressured by the government, no matter what
he's saying. I don't get upset. A lot of people
get upset when they hear hosts saying something. If I
(12:00):
don't like a show, I just turn it off and
when I hear people upset with what we do here,
if I'm with an earshot of it, I'll just say, well,
just turn it off.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
It's not meant for you, all right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
When I don't like something, I just say to myself
that was not intended for me. I'm not in the demographic.
Somebody likes it, it's not me. I don't get mad.
It'sn't waste my time with it. But I don't know
a lot of people are different. So when it comes
to Jimmy Kimmel, when you work in radio or television,
(12:39):
you're supposed to bring in revenue.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
That's your main job.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
You're supposed to bring in the audience, but the audience
has to lead to revenue. There are people who get audiences,
but those audiences can't be sold to an advertisement. And
there are people with small audiences who make a lot
of money because those audiences are very loyal, they respond
to all the advertising, or they are wealthy, whatever the
reason is. But primarily, first thing is you got to
(13:06):
be able to bring in revenue. Now, when I was
growing up, Johnny Carson was the obviously the king of
Late Night, and I loved watching his show, and I
loved watching Jay Leno and David Letterman over the years.
But Carson brought in seventeen percent of NBC's profits at
(13:27):
the time, and he used to get about seventeen million
people a night, sometimes more. I just said Jimmy Kimmel
his ratings. Kimmel's getting not seventeen million, He's getting in
one million a night, one million. There are three hundred
(13:48):
and forty million people in America, and three hundred and
thirty nine million of them don't bother to watch. Now
the million that do they enjoyed the show, that's great.
But if what they said about Stephen Colbert is true
that he was losing forty million dollars a year and
(14:09):
Kimmel has less than half of Colbert's audience, well then
I don't think Kimmel's making any money for ABC. And
there is something known as not worth it anymore too
much trouble. Broadcast companies, entertainment companies will put up with
(14:30):
a lot if they're making a lot of money off you.
And when you stop making money, it doesn't matter whether
you are right or wrong, or the advertisers are right
or wrong, or the host is right or wrong, or
they had the actives are right wrong, doesn't matter. You're
not making money, You're it's too much trouble, it's not
worth it. And that's where Kimmel is. If the numbers
(14:55):
are true and Colbert was losing forty million dollars a year,
I don't see how Kimmel is not losing something similar.
I have never heard of a time, and that's why
I still don't know if those numbers are true. I've
never heard of a time where a company would employ
somebody and give them a two hundred person staff like
Stephen Colbert had lose forty million dollars a year. I've
(15:17):
just said that that's unheard of to me, unless somebody
else was subsidizing it, or unless the parent company had
a political motivation.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
There's a lot of conspiracy theories, but I don't know
any of that. Someday I do, then it'll clear things up.
So my suspicion is that Jimmy Kimmel had a money
losing operation like Colbert, And my suspicion is that Jimmy Fallon,
who has even a smaller audience, is also a big
money losing operation. Because people simply don't watch broadcast television
(15:48):
at eleven thirty at night anymore, and the audiences have
plummeted in the last ten years since Lenno and Letterman
left the scene. These guys, for the most part, went
full political, full woke, anti Trump, pro Democrats, pro progressive,
(16:14):
and it got pretty vicious. And again I don't think
they should be kicked off the air for any of
those things. If you get an audience and you make money,
because if they were getting like if Colbert or Kimmel
were making the money that Johnny Carson made for NBC,
if they were responsible for seventeen percent of the profits,
they'd still be there. And Disney would go to court
or CBS would go to court and tell Trump to
(16:37):
go pound sand and there'd be a big fight. But no,
it's too much trouble. You're not worth it. That's the
situation he's in. And I have read so much and
heard so much nonsense from people who just don't understand.
This is not a the first I said this the
(16:57):
other day. The First Amendment means the government cannot prevent
you from expressing your opinion and cannot punish you and
take your freedoms away for expressing it. You the person,
but Jimmy kimillal go on a street corner and say
(17:20):
whatever he wants. The government can't do anything. But when
you're have broadcast licenses, you're in bed with the government.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
It's may be wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I said, nobody ought to lose their job because the
government puts pressure. But as I told you in the
first segment, everybody in broadcast TV and radio has been
living with this since the invention of radio and television,
and there's many incidents over the years. The comedy team
the Smothers Brothers famously got fired by CBS because their
(17:52):
comedy sketches were too anti Richard Dixon, too anti war.
There's always this tension of a perfect, pure world. So, yeah,
you have the First Amendment to say what you want,
but when you have a broadcast license at stake, not really,
And probably if the people at ABC were smarter, they
(18:16):
would have clipped out some of the comments, maybe urged
Kimmel to change directions.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Maybe he would have quit.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
I don't know, but it was clear you were steering
into different waters. Now it just depends whether you want
to survive or not. All right, got work coming up.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Just a couple of more things because there were so
many angles to this Jimmy Kennel situation. Another major component
to this, extremely important is that ABC is a network,
but they only own relatively few stations themselves in the
big cities like New York, LA, Chicago own and operated stations,
(19:02):
but most of the affiliates are not owned by ABC,
and so you have to play ball with your affiliate owners.
And there is a company called Nextstar, which owns thirty
ABC affiliates, runs Jimmy Kimmel in all those markets, and
they had to get approval from the FCC firm a purchase.
(19:25):
They want to buy another television a company called Tenga,
and to buy Tenga you need approval from the FCC
because Tenga has television stations as well. And so that's
when they decided, or maybe they got the message that, hey,
(19:46):
you want this approved. You're running Jimmy Kimmel in thirty cities.
Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe they felt that way themselves. I
don't know. Another company called Sinclair, which is known to
be run by conservative executives, they also said they weren't
going to run Kimmel's show for the time being. Well,
(20:06):
now you've lost a big chunk of the country. You
have two major television companies for the smaller and medium markets.
But it's you know, covers a lot of territory and
affiliates get to say in all this. And again I
knew this firsthand. We were syndicated for a few years.
Now you don't really need to be because you know,
(20:27):
with the iHeartRadio app we're on in all fifty states
and around the world. But years ago, if you wanted
to go to other markets, you had to be syndicated,
and I would get calls from affiliates all the time.
And you have no idea how insane a lot of
people are who own broadcast stations or manage them or
holy I mean, there's a lot of crazy people out there,
(20:52):
and certain towns and certain markets didn't know what to
make of us. But you have to deal with them.
That's the business. You can't go, oh, I have a
First Amendment, right, it's.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Stick. It just stick.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
It got to play ball with people the way the
world is. And then one more note on the fairness doctrine.
I mentioned that this was the law up until the
late nineteen eighties, where if you had somebody with a
controversial political opinion, you had to give equal time to
the other side. And that lasted, I think until nineteen
eighty seven, and then they got rid of it, and
(21:28):
then suddenly you had modern talk radio.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Rush Limbough and all the rest.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
The Democrats periodically been very frustrated with the political tilt
of modern talk radio, and they have tried to revive
the fairness doctrine. They never got it passed, but that's
what they wanted to do. There were definitely bills introduced,
and there were definitely strong statements made that they wanted
to dismantle a station like KFI, and they wanted to
(21:58):
dismantle similar stations and other cities. So spare me the
hypocrisy of all these left wing people howling about First
Amendment rights, because what they wanted to do was put
modern talk radio entirely out of business. They weren't interested
in the First Amendment rights of any of the hosts
(22:20):
or any of the listeners who chose to listen to it.
They just thought it had become too much of a
political force, too much influence, and maybe we ought to
write a federal law to get rid of it, which
is what they had basically until nineteen eighty seven, where
you really couldn't have a great exchange of political opinion.
(22:41):
So I know, I hear a tremendous amount of hypocrisy,
a tremendous amount of ignorance, people who just don't understand
how the world works. The FCC has always been the
daddy that broadcasters had to report to. There is no owner,
how big you are. You could be Disney, you could
(23:03):
be Comcast which owns NBC, the New CBS owners, they
all got to report to the FCC, just like I
was in nineteen thirty four, just like it's always been
because back then in nineteen thirty four, there was only
a handful of AM stations. There were no FM, no TV,
and they were afraid that crazy people would take over
(23:26):
the stations and have an extreme influence on the public.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
And they couldn't allow that.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
So they had it highly regulated, highly regulated, the frequency
you're on, highly regulated, how many how much.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Power you have?
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Highly regulated? Four until nineteen eighty seven. Your content, I mean,
I don't know. I was a kid, I'd be listening
to the top forty station New York, and every half
are they every twenty five minutes they had to stop
and run five minutes of news.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I don't want to hear the news. They do our long.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Newscast middle of all the hits. They'd run hours and
hours of public service programming on Sunday nights. I want
to do music on Sunday nights. I couldn't because the
FCC said so. So these people howling about the FCC,
howling about the First Amendment, you're just full of it.
It's never been that way for broadcasting. But everybody's used
(24:22):
to growing up in a world of internet streaming, cable, satellite,
where you can say anything you want.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
There are no limits.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
Like I said the other day, people are very upset
with immigration law being enforced.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
It's because they.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Never saw it before. But the law has always been there. Well,
the FCC has always been there. It's just that for
the past thirty odd years, nobody there really cared very much.
But it was always there, and maybe you just didn't
grow up at a time over the last thirty years
where the FCC mattered, Well, it always did and now
(24:58):
it does again. And debate to the end of time
whether that's right or wrong, but it's not going to
change any time soon. And one more thing here that
just broke. Jimmy Kimmel was did not want to apologize
for his remarks and said he was going to double
(25:20):
down on going after Trump's Magi backers before they took
him off the air, because maybe it's time to play
the clip.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Could you play the clip?
Speaker 1 (25:29):
And I'm probably only gonna play a few seconds of it,
But this is what he said the other night.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
We hit some new lows over the weekend with the
Magga gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered
Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and
do everything they can to score political points from it.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
In between the freaks, you can stop it there. So
he was implied that it was a Maga guy who
shot Charlie Kirk. That was wrong, that was false, And
by the time he makes those comments, he should have
own that.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Maybe he didn't know that. I can't tell you what was.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Going on in his head, and he wanted to go
back out last night and say more things about the
Maga crowd. What he said was false and it was
just really wrong considering what happened to Charlie Kirk. Charlie
(26:26):
Kirk didn't do anything, Jimmy Kimmel, And then when you
talk about the wife and kids witnessing the murder, that
was just stupid, and not to apologize, and then to
continue wanting to blame these imaginary MAGA supporters who shot
Charlie Kirk. I don't know what's going on in the
(26:49):
guy's head, but in this climate, ABC and Disney said
enough because, like I told you before, what I read
is true. Kimmel's ratings, he's only got a million people watching.
Johnny Carson had seventeen billion. Johnny Carson had seventeen percent
of NBC's profits credited to him. Kimo has no zero percent,
(27:12):
and it's probably believed based on Stephen colbert situation. Probably
he's losing tens of millions of dollars for ABC and Disney.
So why you would do that, I don't know. But
all right, now, that's enough for now. We'll talk more
about it. After three o'clock.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
You're listening to John Cobelts on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
After two o'clock, we're gonna have Steve Hilton on. Steve
Hilton is the leading Republican candidate for governor in California.
He's second in the overall rankings, behind the Democrat Katie Porter,
and he's ahead of the other major Republican in the race,
Chad Bianco. We've ever talked to Steve before. We're talking
(27:53):
to him on a specific issue. He's filed a federal
lawsuit to stop Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan. And you'll be
the first time you'll hear him. And he's a fascinating guy,
a fascinating background. He used to be an advisor to
the British Prime Minister. He's started a tech company. Parents
(28:18):
were from Hungary, he grew up in England. He came
to this country and he was a Fox News host
for about six years and he still as a commentator.
And I think he's got a lot to say that
you'll want to hear. And we'll have him on coming
up in minutes. You may be wondering where all these
people got their bizarre political beliefs from. Well, there's a
(28:43):
college back east called Oberlin College. It is the most
whack job, far left wing progressive college in the entire country.
And they produce women like Julia ju Xu. That's how
you say her name. And this is what she posted
this week.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
So the day after Charlie Kirk died, I was in class.
My teacher said, I'll give you five minutes for hot
takes about Charlie Kirk. I was the only person who
raise their hand. I said, I've been saying we need
to bring back political assassinations. I don't feel bad, and
I don't think that everyone deserves the right to free speech.
I think some people should be afraid to express their
opinion in public. So this class is literally about revolution
in China. All of our readings for this month, I've
(29:25):
been talking about how violent revolution liberated millions of people
at liberated women. And then our reading for that day
was specifically about democratic dictatorship, where Mao writes about, yes,
people deserve free speech, but there should not be free
speech for reactionaries and imperialists and capitalists and all these
people who are enemies of the revolution, because that would
reverse the progress that was made there.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We go, this is what's going on, not just her,
thousands and thousands of other students, and it's being taught
to them in these classes. And she was influenced by
her what she learned about Chairman Mau in China and
(30:09):
Listen to her resume. She's on the advisory board of
the campus group the Gender, Sexuality and Attraction Initiatives. It's
an office that supports queer trands and women's programming at
the school.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
He uses, she uses.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
They then pronouns and is a member of Students for
a Free Palestine. So there you got the hull jackpot there,
and she thinks we need to bring back political assassinations
so we can get our freedoms back. All right, more
coming up, We're going to talk to Steve Hilton, the
(30:46):
leading Republican candidate for governor. We're going to talk specifically
this time about the lawsuit hes filed against Gavin Newsom.
Federal lawsuit over Newsom is what he says is an
illegal and unconstitutional redish plan.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
That is next.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Hey, you've been listening to the John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can always hear the show live on KFI AM
six forty from one to four pm every Monday through Friday,
and of course anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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