Josh Innes returning to Houston sports radio

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Josh Innes, the talented but polarizing former KILT (610 AM) sports talk host, will return to Houston next Monday on rival station KBME (790 AM), which let go longtime radio host Charlie Pallilo to make way for Innes in the ratings-crucial afternoon drive time slot.

Pallilo's status with the iHeartMedia station was not addressed in a company statement announcing Innes' hiring to work the 3-7 p.m. shift on KBME, and station officials did not return calls seeking comment Monday.

But Pallilo's name and blog were removed from the KBME website, and he told colleagues he was no longer with the iHeartMedia station.

He said via a text message that he would have no comment Monday.

Innes, who recently was fired by CBS Radio station WIP in Philadelphia, will be paired with his former KILT producer, Jim Mudd, on KBME from 3-7 p.m. beginning next Monday.

RELATED: Josh Innes fired in Philadelphia

Former Sports Radio 610 host Josh Innes will return to Houston as a drive-time talk show host on 790 AM. Former Sports Radio 610 host Josh Innes will return to Houston as a drive-time talk show host on 790 AM. Photo: Dave Rossman/For The Houston Chronicle Photo: Dave Rossman/For The Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 33 Caption Close Josh Innes returning to Houston sports radio 1 / 33 Back to Gallery

His show will air opposite the KILT afternoon drove show co-hosted by Rich Lord, with whom he had a strained relationship during his time at KILT. That sets up what could be one of the most contentious, potentially entertaining ratings and programing face-offs in the brief history of Houston sports radio.

Innes said Monday afternoon he had other radio offers but wanted to return to Houston and looks forward to competing against his former colleagues at KILT.

"After I left Houston, I missed it," he said. "And the opportunity at 790 is perfect. They said they want me to be who I am and to do what I do, and they will support what I do."

Despite his friendship with several KILT hosts, he said, "I still want to beat them. I wasn't hired by 790 to be white noise and not make some kind of impact. I was brought in to win and generate revenue and ratings and breathe life into what has not been a very interesting radio market right now. It's very dull. There's nothing that's special."

Innes' return arguably is one of the splashiest hires in Houston sports radio since iHeart, then known as Clear Channel Radio, hired Pallilo away from KILT in 2004 and launched KBME as Houston's second full-time all-sports station.

Infinity Broadcasting, which at the time owned KILT, sued unsucesfully to enforce a six-month non-compete clause, and Pallilo moved into the afternoon drive slot on 790 that he held for more than a decade.

Pallilo's show was never a ratings leader, regularly trailing KILT's afternoon drive show, now manned by Lord, Sean Pendergast and former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson. In the most recent Nielsen Audio ratings, KILT's "Triple Threat" had a 3.8 audience share among men 25-54 to 2.3 for Pallilo and 2.7 for the Fred Faour-A.J. Hoffman afternoon drive time show on KFNC (97.5 FM).

Still, he was a longtime favorite among Houston sports talk listeners, dating back to his arrival in Houston in April 1989 to work on KTRH (740 AM) alongside Lord and Russ Small. He moved to KILT in 1999.

Innes, by contrast, reveled in personality-driven conversation. His goal for his KBME show, he said, is to fire up the passionate sports conversations that are part of sports talk stations in most cities but that he has found lacking in Houston.

"I enjoy sports," he said. "I go to games and sit in the stands and drink beer with people and have a good time. That's where you hear people's opinions and have fun. That creates energy.

To succeed in sports radio, he said, "You need 'ride or die' fans. There needs to be a new level of passion brought to sports radio. I think we had that at 610 when I first got there. You need to have people who are passionate about your show and about your station.

"That is how we're going to win, by having people who say 'this is my station.' You're not building on teams. You have to build on people."

The son of radio host and voice actor Scott Innes, he moved from his native Louisiana to join KILT in December 2009 and a year later moved to afternoon drive time with Lord, one of Houston's longest-tenured sports talk hosts.

From a 2.2 percent audience share in January 2011 in afternoon drive among men 25-54, the key demo for sports radio, KILT improved to 5.3 in October 2011, the second month of a 21-month stretch in the top 10 during which the station climbed as high as No. 4 among all local stations.

He left in late 2013 for WIP, one of the nation's heritage sports talk stations, and quickly established himself as one of the more mercurial voices in that sports-mad market. A few months after his arrival, Philadelphia magazine ran a story headlined "Is Josh Innes Destroying Philadelphia Sports Radio?"

Innes also enjoyed ratings success in Philadelphia until recently, when he was beaten for six consecutive months by rival Mike Missanelli at rival WPEN-FM, but he also courted controversy,

He was suspended in January after using a racial epithet on air to describe Eagles center Jason Kelce, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

RELATED: Josh Innes suspended for on-air racial epithet

More recently, when it was revealed that Missanelli's producer, who was white, had created a black character to call in to the show, Innes posted on Twitter a photo of a performer in blackface. His dismissal followed shortly thereafter.

KBME made no other changes in its daily lineup, which includes Lance Zierlein and Matt Thomas from 6-10 a.m., ND Kalu and Greg Koch from 10 a.m.-noon and Sean Jones and Adam Clanton from noon-3 p.m.

Of Innes, Bryan Erickson, iHeartMedia's Houston director of AM programming, said, "I'm thrilled to be adding such a wildly entertaining show to our live and local lineup. Josh is a unique talent who approaches sports talk radio like no other."