Opinion

Bye Bye Brickhouse

88 Comments

A commenter on the last post asked…

"I thought he isn’t staying once the lease is up anyway, why is he so bitter towards new tenant?"
How much for the rafters?
$80 for the mic stand, do i hear $85? OK $85 from Scooter do I hear $90? $85 going once…..

My diagnosis is that he is coming to grips with reality. The last four years were an important time for TWiT.  As Lisa alluded to in her CEO blog, it was about metaphorically growing twit to fit the brickhouse. They were launching new shows and trying to build a network. They failed.

Management
(L to R) CEO/Wife Lisa Kentzel, Founder Leo Laporte, Malformed creature Ozzie

Now the millions of greenbacks put into the rented brickhouse are gone. They got 4 or 5 years out of that money. Due to bad decisions they lost all talent. Elgin has launched zero shows. Megan has no time to launch a show. Each show Padre has launched would be cancelled if not for the free labor cost. Thank god for Gazelle because they don’t even entertain new show ideas anymore after the TNSS disaster.
An expensive video show for a podcast network, sheesh.

The new people have not had one new show and are struggling to maintain the foundation from crumbling. Leo is well aware that when the next phase comes it will be about squeezing everything he can out of what is left of twit and not growth.

123 in tech can not be good
123 in tech can not be good

The next studio will be smaller. They will retain Jason for AAA and editing with one other editor and one IT guy. Everyone else will have to be let go. TNT will end and Padre will begin his sabbatical. They will cut more costs and try and preserve revenue from the people not updating RSS feeds in iTunes and Stitcher. The days when shows brought viewers to other shows is turning into days where defections cause defections on other programs.

Getting back to the original question of the commenter, Leo knows when the brickhouse closes the final chapter begins. He would probably rather pay high rent for another year or two than admit the truth. This is a sad time and calls for a classic sad video.

88 thoughts on “Bye Bye Brickhouse”

    1. I have been highly critical of TotalDrama blogposts, especially those by HelloWorld who is an irresponsible raving lunatic whose posts rarely have any connection to reality.

      But in this post, Ghost Dog begins with “My diagnosis is that…” He tells us at the outset that this is his opinion. How can you say he ought to be (or could be) sued for expressing his best guess as to what is going to happen at TWiT? That’s nonsense.

      “why is he so bitter towards new tenant?”

      Isn’t it the new *owner* who Leo says intends to open a restaurant and brewery in the Brick House space?

      What I found distressing in the video clip where Leo discusses the future of his studio was the giddy delight he took in the business failures of the two most recent restaurants that opened and closed in the space adjacent to his studio.

      He laughed his obnoxious laugh at how the last restaurant owner walked away from his restaurant even leaving the set-ups on all the tables. Leo said he got a kick out of watching the flowers on the restaurant’s tables wilt away in the suddenly shuttered business.

      That, for me, was a more telling insight into Leo’s character than most of the nonsense and wishful thinking posted here in the TD blog and in the TD chat. Someone’s losing a business into which were plowed blood, sweat, tears, hopes for the future and possibly a life savings was just a big giggle for Laporte.

      Disgusting.

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      2. The pre-show montage is classic paranoid scitzophrenic rambling, and the next steps in the progression typically involve addictive behaviors and substance abuse. Leo likely needs professional help and meds if he expects to maintain any semblance of a professional demeanor. Few people are comfortable working with someone in this state. This may explain the defections of talent and advertisers.

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        1. “addictive behaviors and substance abuse.”

          Well I think he’s done that already with all the stress eating he’s been doing this past year or two. Food can be substance abuse just as much as drugs.

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    1. Remember when they tried to replace Skype with the other thing that failed miserably?

      The first few weeks at the Shithouse were the last good days. I liked the late night call in show that Erik used to do, it was nice to not hear Padre reruns or Ham Nation at nights.

      It all started to go downhill with the firing of Erik, except Leo’s gut that started to eclipse everything else.

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  4. I used to subscribe of all of twit’s feeds (cept hamradio). However, over the I years I became disgusted with #soupguzzlar with and his sexual antics and bullying behaviour. The final straw was the dick picture…that image will forever live in my memory. For the last 12 months I have been going in to rehab and now the only show I subscribe to is AAA (still got some loyalty to Jason Howell). I am 40 years old and naive as I maybe Leo Laporte introduced me to the concept of the “sex chair”.

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    1. Good grief. An all too familiar story. It’s inevitable to figure out that for all his charms, Leo Laporte is really kind of a disgusting human being.

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  5. Imagine if Leo was still in the cottage. I bet He wish’s he could have kept all of the money that he sunk into a huge studio they hardly use to produce content.

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  6. Leo Laporte is out of ideas, and quickly running out of good will. The final act will be burning through all of the money they’ve stowed on vacations and ever-growing bitterness and disdain for his listeners, podcast or radio, who will be his final audience.

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  7. I can’t wait till they have to disassemble all the bricks people paid alot of money for. I wonder what will happen to all those bricks maybe they will be chucked into the river lmao.

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  8. Is it me or are all of Leo’s shows seemly turning into one big ad with very little usable information jambed in between ?
    What a stupid fuckup, how long does he feel that’s going to last?

    It went from 1 ad every half hour to 2-3 ads in a row on his Radio Show.

    That tells me he’s trying to milk as much money as can from sponsors before shit hits the fan and he loses it all.

    For a man with all of his medical ailments that came from “menu takeout” food ,it hasn’t slowed him down from ordering out or eating during every show, today’s Windows Weekly show he was talking constantly talking with his mouth full of food.
    What a fucking asshole, can’t feel bad for someone that can’t even try to help himself.

    Just counting the days till his fat ass gets buried in a piano box.

    Stupid cunt

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    1. Terrestrial radio usually has over 16 minutes of ads per hour. iHeart sell the air time on The Tech Guy., not TWiT. Leo ads a few ads for the podcast while cutting out the on sit breaks. Try again.

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      1. StevieD – You’re wrong. I Heart Radio is owned by Clear Channel. Soup is syndicated by Premiere Networks, who decides the commercial amounts.

        Get your facts right, sport. And get your dick out of Leo’s mouth.

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          1. Holden wrote: “And it’s “Leo *adds*, not adds.” Stupid fuck.”

            Speaking of “stupid fucks,” what’s the difference between “adds” and “adds?” They look identical to me. Rofl.

            I don’t think someone who misspells a word is a “dumb fuck.” However someone who calls a poster a “dumb fuck” because he misspelled a word and then proceeds to make a ridiculous mistake of his own — well, that guy has unaddressed issues. Major unaddressed issues.

            Correcting minor spelling errors (especially in Internet discussion) when one knows exactly what the writer meant is trolling, because it’s annoying and serves no useful purpose other than to boost the troll’s own low self-esteem by exhibiting “superior knowledge” while simultaneously trying to make someone else feel or look stupid. How sad and pathetic.

            It’s particularly pathetic but also the stuff of comedy when the troll makes his own mistakes while nit-picking someone else’s.

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          3. @freheel We know the difference between ad and add, but Holden posted there was a difference between the seemingly identical words ‘add’ and ‘add.’ Either Holden is more error prone than the people he gets off on correcting (replete with expletive laden insults), or he was going Zen on us. I suspect the former.

            And best regards to you, too.

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        2. Holden wrote: “You’re wrong. I Heart Radio is owned by Clear Channel. Soup is syndicated by Premiere Networks, who decides the commercial amounts.”

          @Holden: Please, for the love of God, stop correcting people and get your facts straight for once, sport.

          The “Clear Channel” name doesn’t even EXIST anymore, and Premiere is a SUBSIDIARY of iHeart and “The Tech Guy” is carried by iHeart.

          Wikipedia:
          “iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company founded by …”

          Premiere’s website:
          “Premiere Networks, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Media and Entertainment), syndicates 90 radio programs and services to more than 5,500 radio affiliations”

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        3. Sorry, your facts are wrong.

          Clear Channel is no longer, they renamed themselves iHeart Media in September 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/business/media/embracing-digital-brand-clear-channel-renames-itself-iheartmedia.html?_r=0

          Premiere Networks is a subsidiary of iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Media and Entertainment). And its the network, not Leo that books the time in The Tech Guy radio show. http://www.premierenetworks.com

          And you’re also wrong about the mouth.

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    2. If only there were a way for Leo to know for certain when these shows would begin. For example, let’s say that Leo’s day began during the week at 11 AM, Monday through Wednesday. Leo could make sure he had a nice big breakfast at 10 AM, so he wouldn’t need to shovel food into his gaping maw during his shows.

      Alas, I posit the impossible. This isn’t Leo’s fault. Who knows when WW will begin on Wednesdays? Could be 8 AM, could be 3 PM. Its not like there’s a schedule or anything, I mean don’t be ridiculous! There’s no WAY Leo can solve this problem!

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  10. The quality has really picked up on TD here lately. Great work.

    I think the problem that many have with Leo is that he treats people the way he treats his phones, disposable, moves on to the next one that claims to have new features.

    Leo will move on from everyone, Lisa, Mike, Padre, when another option presents itself.

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  11. The “People We Lost in ’13 and ’14” video at the bottom of this blogpost was an incredibly well done parody of the Oscars and Emmy’s segments that honor those performers who recently kicked the bucket.

    Who made that video? Is it new or was it given a reprise posting? The selection of the pics and clips, the slo-mo, the music, and the varying amount of applause as each dead person was shown were an absolutely dead-on (no pun intended) technically flawless parody of the dead people segments of those award shows.

    One interesting sidelight is that for the last couple of years the award shows stopped allowing audience reaction to those segments to be heard while they were playing since it was deemed unseemly that the audience should be heard applauding loudly for some performers while the lesser-knowns or lesser-loved received just an embarrassing scattering of applause. What became a bad taste popularity contest with dead contestants had become a tradition that the award show audiences had spontaneously started and that was finally ended by the producers.

    My one criticism of the video was leading off with Justin Robert Young. While I almost wept when seeing some of those “departed” (it was so well-done I had to keep reminding myself that they were just gone from TWiT and not really gone gone), I would have cheered when the execrable Justin’s face was shown. Not for dying, but for not being on TWiT anymore. He (and Brushwood as well) do not, imo, belong in that group of terrific people. I know that’s a minority opinion. Otherwise, though, just a brilliant piece of videography. Kudos!

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    3. Thank you so much for your generous comments Elbridge Gerry. I did the video but it was suggested by another longtime TotalDrama contributor. So it truly is a team effort here on the blog. Thank you for reading, and best wishes to you.

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  12. I’m so looking forward to the following. The Travel Show, that’ll be brilliant ! So will the planned meet ups, but don’t mind the last one, that was a blip, also Tech stuff coming from abroad, the ones that’ll be “on the ground” , you know the ones where Mike Elgan will skilfully report what’s really happening. Also, the reporting from the New York operation, I’ll bet that will be amazing ! Well it turns out these promises are utter bullshit.
    It’s actually a shame this once great network is now turning out stuff from a bunch of boring old farts.

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      1. >Can’t have too many old white guys…

        So you’re obsessed with the fact they are white men? You want more tokenism? Black, one-legged, lesbian, dwarf, sheep farmers? Will that get you off? I wouldn’t be surprised.

        You sound like Mike “I haven’t done a supposed tech industry discrimination story in over 3.5 seconds” Elgan.

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  13. I HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO TURN OFF TWIT FOR GOOD. THE AMOUNT OF TIMES LEO JUST BREEZES INTO ADULT SEXUAL TOPICS & INNUENDOS MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO WATCH WITH MY CHILDREN IN THE HOUSE. I REALLY LIKE THE NETWORK. I WISH HE WOULD GET BACK TO HIS FAMILY ORIENTED STYLE. I CANT BE THE ONLY PARENT WHO HAS THIS ISSUE. IT IS SAD HE IS LOSING VIEWERS OVER THIS.

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  14. According to my sources, there may be a hidden agenda as to why Leo appears to be sabotaging the TWIT business. It appears the alimony agreement with the mother of his children is tied into profits from said TWIT business. Should that business fold, those alimony payments cease and do not necessarily restart with the creation of a new, albiet similiar, business. The ploy is similiar to that used by corporations seeking absolution from creditor debt… ie. they file for bankruptcy, then reorganize under a different name, which legally has no ties to the former corporation even if they maintain the same physical address.

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    1. This is not only sleazy as fuck, but entirely plausible. Sadly, one can easily see Jabba Laporte being amenable to this kind of strategy.

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  15. Nah. We looked into that. It’s considered a successor business (the same one) unless we relocate or just the entity type.

    To screw Jennifer I just pay high salary to Lisa and buy a lot of stuff for myself that show up as expenses. It brings profit down so alimony goes down but I get Lisa’s salary back and fun toys.

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  16. Just wanted to chime in and show my support, the content has been very good lately and I hope you keep it up.

    The man has provided me with an unbelievable amount of free content and knowledge over the last decade, but he needs to be called to account for the last few years of sociopathic behavior.

    One thing I would especially like to see investigated by the reporters here at TD is the transition that TWiT made from “help support the network” via “Tip Leo”, “Buy a brick”, etc. to a strictly for-profit enterprise – wherein the proprietors spend countless hours on-air revisiting their latest luxury vacations, home improvement projects, etc.. There is something very disingenuous about the way that went down and I think that may be at the core of much of the animosity that old school TWiT fans have – even more so than the shedding of talent that happened in the last few years. I imagine there must be some damning evidence in the video archives to this end.

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    1. I agree that This Week in an Echo Chamber’s post made excellent points.

      However I don’t fully agree with ” the transition that TWiT made from “help support the network” via “Tip Leo”, “Buy a brick”, etc. to a strictly for-profit enterprise -”

      From the beginning (I was watching) TWiT was really a hybrid of a non-profit, hobbyist project and a start-up with a goal of becoming profitable. There were a few ads from the beginning. Even back then, Leo made no secret about wanting to grow TWiT into a profitable business. Many of us on #TWITLIVE (in private messaging, of course) agreed that Leo was jealous of all the newly minted millionaires half his age like (and especially) Kevin Rose. So even in the cottage Leo was unhappy with having been in the business for decades with little to show for it. You have to give him credit that he intelligently used his “brand” and following to create something out of nothing without there being any template for what he was doing.

      In the beginning, Leo had only a couple of sponsors. I remember him discussing during the financial meltdown and recession of the late ’00s what would happen if he lost those accounts and no new ones came on board. He said he would have to cut back on some of the things he was doing (I forget the specifics) but that he could afford to continue some of what he was doing even if there were no income. So I think it was true, then, that he was doing TWiT partly for the love of doing it.

      I’m sure Lisa had a lot to do with pushing Leo to go all-out for profit, but I don’t think he had to be pushed too hard.

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      1. I think the financial golden opportunity for TWIT has come and gone, and if there ever was a window for a huge windfall, Leo had nothing on the table. Now, the best he can hope for is a steady cash flow from suckers to fund his taco salads, vacations and indoor swings.

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      2. For me, the realization began when Lisa started hawking the T-shirts even though a fan was already doing the same essentially gratis for TWIT.

        The dismissive way Lisa spoke of the fan was stunning to me. Naively I even wrote to Leo explaining how I believed this would undermine the ethos of the community that supported TWIT.

        Nothing. However, I did notice I began to be kicked off the chat any time I said anything about anything with the comment from the mods “Now look what you’ve done.”

        I think you are correct. Leo is weak and without the moral center that was Jennifer, he was ripe for the turning.

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  17. Awesome point
    “This Week in an Echo Chamber”

    with penis-gate and all the talent loss lately ,the “bricks” /cash “looking like scam now ” is a sore spot

    Hopfuly TD or HelloWorld can create a detailed video about the rise and fail of the “Bricks”

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  18. As far as the shedding of talent, Lisa, the TWiT CEO and Leo’s bed mate, discovered she can huck ad sales for just about any shit hole product regardless of it’s tech worthiness. Zero talent needed. The question remains is for how long can Lisa keep this shell game up? I’m sure the dick pick gate incident brought more than one sponsoring company to the brink of pulling their ads off the shitwork. Also notice how Lisa has remaind in the background pretty much since the boat cruise ended. Leo, between shows, suggested a inside twit , and Lisa nixed it, claiming she wasn’t ready. It’s clear the chat room has turned on her and the mods can’t or won’t control Lisa’s distractors.

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  19. If you put all of the personal issues aside. Leo showing up late, unprepared, tired looking. The dick pics, the low brow nature of Leo’s dirty talk. The constant eating on the air. The unprofessional on air and in the workplace flaunting of the relationship between Leo and Lisa. The talking behind peoples backs. The frequent vacations.

    Forget all the so called trolling that Leo feels he is victim of.

    The bottom line is this.
    1. The product they produce has seriously gone down in quality.
    2. We are the consumers of that product.
    3. There is no openness to honest feedback about the product.

    Leo does not want to take an honest look at the quality of his work, and he doesn’t want to hear about it.

    Leo is not a craftsman. He is making a lot of money, so he is closing his ears and eyes to what his audience wants. He stopped caring. If he cared, he’d listen to us.

    “At the end of the day” , I like TWiT. We all do. But we want it to live up to it’s potential. We are mad because a man that we used to admire, has let us down, and sold us out. We are tech enthusiasts. We enjoyed the TWiT product at one time. Now the only enjoyment we can get from it, to fill that hole, is to have fun watching it go downhill.

    Nobody really wants to make this personal, it’s about the product.

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    2. @An Honest Assessment From the Lips of Jizz wrote “Leo is making a lot of money, so he is closing his ears and eyes to what his audience wants. He stopped caring. If he cared, he’d listen to us.” and “Now the only enjoyment we can get from it, to fill that hole, is to have fun watching it go downhill.”

      But if he’s making a lot of money, he must be pleasing a lot of people. There must be a lot of people who like what he is doing now. They just aren’t the same people who used to like TWiT, like you and me. There’s no question that he’s following the money and not trying to make his former fans happy.

      This is very common in life. Things change. You have to be adaptable. If a store used to stock stuff that you liked but then stopped carrying that stuff, what would you do?

      Would you simply find a new store that carried what you liked, or would you stand outside the original store all day with a picket sign in protest? Or if you were like HelloWorld (by his own explicit admission in TotalDrama IRC) would you make 100 suspended-for-harassment Twitter accounts to send obscene nastygrams to the people who worked in or patronized the business that “done you wrong?”

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      1. @SagHarbor the only thing I would say against “going to another store” analogy is that there is only one Paul and Mary Jo…its not like a pair of pants.

        but I do understand what you’re saying 🙂

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      2. I don’t think they are pleasing anyone.

        The companies that sponsor them often advertise on all halfway popular popular podcasts and YouTube shows.

        Lisa’s MO is to make lots of content just to get more ad revenue from these shit companies. For instance Audible advertises on anything with a few dozen thousands of viewers. Just look at some YouTube channels that get say 50,000 views per video and shove in an Audible ad.

        It’s quantity over quality over at TWiT now, because Audible or NatureBox don’t care what they advertise on, as long as you get a few thousand people to watch.

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      3. @SagHarbor “But if he’s making a lot of money, he must be pleasing a lot of people. ”

        That is very short term thinking. He is reaping now what he sewed 5 years ago. 5 years from now he will reap what he is sowing now. TWiT is running on the fumes of the past.

        Is he pleasing a lot of people? Or are there just more people being exposed to the content. Is the audience expressing great satisfaction?

        Is Leo still making TWiT, MBW, TWIW? He is still trying to make the same product, he is just doing it very poorly now.

        All of the shows Leo hosts are suffering. They are still the same shows he used to make. So what do mean it’s a change? Is he still not trying to host a weekly news show called TWiT? Yes, and the preparedness and quality of the show has suffered greatly. Here’s why:

        1. not prepared
        2. fools around throughout the show
        3. Hosts are rotated too much
        4. The intelligence of the conversation has nosedived.

        Leo has this notion that all he has to do is show up and host. That’s a big mistake. He has to lead. Do you think Howard Stern just shows up and starts blabbing? No, they have meeting after meeting, they have writers, they have a plan. As silly as that show is, it’s crafted very carefully in service to the audience.

        Leo is a great broadcaster, and he is a funny guy, but he’s not serving his audience. He needs to hone the craft of making great podcasts, or he needs to find the right person who will make that happen. He can not just be weak and stop caring at the peak of creating a network. If Leo choosing not to care, then what he gets is us. Not caring is not a “different product” its, not caring.

        To say it’s just a change, is a cop out, this is not art, listen to the actual show. Sometime I think he forgets there is even an audience, especially an audio only audience.

        Compare the old days of Jason Calacanis, or Ryan Block types that used to come on TWiT. They are deep industry thinkers that would bring deep insight into the conversation. Now we have O’Docta types? Leo just can not deliver the same caliber of hosts. And Leo doesn’t have the same passion for the industry. That’s not a store selling a different product, that the quality of the product going down.

        Leo’s biggest flaw I think is not being able to choose the right people to do certain jobs. For example, He needs someone there that has a clear understanding of what they are trying to do. (Create great tech content).

        A quality network has to have a commitment and a clear vision. Leo needs to sit down in his car and go for a drive, and listen to a few episodes of TWiT, and MBW, a few other shows, and be real honest about what it’s like as a consumer of that content, and get insight into how to make it better. Listen deeply to it. What is bad about it, what is good about it.

        I don’t have any problem with the new shows, or changes made. My problem is with the quality of the content itself, and most particularly the shows he hosts himself.

        I do take issue with the news offering too. If I were running TWiT the news department would not be this idea of just picking out some stories everyday and this boring sit down. I would have camera men, and news anchors covering events. Going out and interviewing people, startups, making short segments on location, things like that. I’d also have an anchor at a desk all day with a big screen TV behind them, like 70″, with a TWiTTER Panel and covering LIVE tech news with brief updates.

        Why? Because that is compelling. That gives people a place to go during the day to get caught up on what is happening NOW.

        That’s just a few ideas. But Basically it takes effort, it takes energy, and yes it takes a bit of money and risk. But in the end that is how great things are created. Leo want’s no part of these things.

        Just look at the difference in appearance of Sarah Lane’s daily news show compared to the TWiT show.

        There is something wrong culturally.

        I appreciate that Leo decided to do TNSS. That showed a willingness to make an effort. But the question is, what was the intent? To make a great show, or to make money? If you do it to make money, it wont work. It has to be in your heart. That remains to be seen.

        I hope Leo does make it great again, and we will all be pleased, and I am sure he will be very successful if he does.

        But don’t cop out and say that Leo is just changing the product.

        In the end, I am trying to say it that Leo’s personal life is his business, and how he runs his business is his business. But as a consumer of TWiT content:

        1. The quality has gone way down
        2. There is no way to give feedback directly to TWiT
        3. We so called trolls, are really just unhappy audience

        You know damn well if you get a certain percentage of unhappy audience actually expressing themselves, it’s statistically a good indication that there really is something wrong.

        Leo should be proactive in correcting some of the problems.w

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        1. Leo is extremely smart and thoughtful and funny. He would make great host. He still has a good mind for getting to issues, he is the opposite of Elgim. He got lazy and not interested in tech anymore.

          I have a feeling Eileen Rivera made him a lot better than he was. She treated him the way you treat celebrities, babying them and making sure they do what they have to.

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        2. @An Honest Assessment From the Lips of Jizz My God, someone even more long-winded than me! I didn’t think there was anyone like that. Do you realize you wrote 938 words? I read about half of what you wrote but think I got the gist of it. Seriously, thanks for taking the time to communicate your thoughts.

          You mention he’s doing the same shows, TWiT, MBW, WW, etc, so it’s not a change other than a decline in quality.

          I was thinking about all those shows that have come and gone. Ray Maxwell’s science oriented show. He was an erudite and fascinating man you would not find anywhere else. Dr. Kiki’s science show. The female solo rower who crossed the Pacific and called in every week or twice a week over a satellite phone from the middle of The Pacific Ocean in a rowboat. Jeri Elsworth who never had a show, but made frequent appearances. A fascinating quirky woman yet totally gone from TWIT. Tummelvision, not a great show, imo, but an intellectual discussion show that would never get near the TWiT schedule today. I could go on if I kept searching my memory. Those shows are off the top of my head and are a very incomplete list. Erik Lanigan’s lengthy night shows where he took calls from tech-savvy callers. There are many others that I’m not recalling at the moment.

          What do we have now? I don’t really know. I know “Marketing Mavericks” is on “hiatus” but that abomination (a show championed by Lisa, I believe) epitomizes the shift in TWiT programming. Leo used to talk about how he hated everything that marketing stood for (deception etc) and then he put on a show that glorified it. That was it for me.

          The point is that you are wrong. It’s not just that Leo got lazy. It’s that the kinds of shows they produced changed. I’m not at all sure that TWiT is just running on fumes. Someone said you never go broke underestimating the American public. Or something like that. Leo has gone from narrow-casting quality shows that never found a large audience to putting on shows for a much wider and stupider audience that is making him rich. But that’s his right. It stinks, but what are you going to do? My answer is go elsewhere online or, God forbid, read a book.

          Only 399 words. I’m not even a contender anymore.

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          1. Hey @ Sag Harbor Thanks for thoughtful reply. It’s interesting that you are here discussing TWiT if you think what he is doing is right.

            Leo himself says that the majority of money comes from the shows he hosts. What new shows that appeal to a bigger audience are making him rich? His bread and butter are the same staple shows he started with. And if you give those shows an honest listen, and compare them to the early shows there is no doubt he was serving his audience better then. But that is his business. He’s already paid a price. People leaving, host not wanting to be associated with him and a general lost of respect in the industry. Does anyone really care about his opinion these days?

            I don’t think he had to dumb down the shows to make a lot of money. You can still sell four adds a show, and if you have a dedicated audience, you get results from those ads, because you have the trust. That’s very cynical, and a bit of reverse engineering to say this was all part of Leo’s brilliant plan.

            Wasn’t the premise of TWiT to not have dumb things down like they did on Tech TV? Didn’t Tech TV go out of business by doing that. Leo has expressed how TWiT is where he can cover things in more technical detail, and not do the cleavage reveal to get an audience.

            I mean yea, he could have topless girls on every podcast too, and that might make his downloads increase, but I don’t see the pride in that. Does Leo want TWiT to be a great product, or does he want to just trick idiots into downloading his content?

            Leo seems to change like the wind, and to me that smells of lack of vision and leadership.

            At any rate, I do go elsewhere for my serious tech coverage. I don’t take Leo seriously as a thinker in the industry like I used to. If you act like a clown, people will see you that way.

            I am trying to inject some honest feedback into the TD conversation, that’s all.

            How many words is this?

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          2. @An Honest Assessment From the Lips of Jizz

            367. I don’t have time right now to continue this at length. I’ll just reply to your first paragraph: “It’s interesting that you are here discussing TWiT if you think what he is doing is right.”

            I don’t think what he’s doing is right, but I think it is his right to set his goal at making the most money for the least effort if that’s what he wants to do, and it is our right to move on when he does so. It is regrettable, I’ll grant you that. I don’t think he’s taken the high road. I agree he’s gotten lazy and pervy and all the rest, but some of what’s written here about that is exaggerated, imo.

            I don’t think he can be coaxed or pressured into doing what we would like him to do. He has a new marriage, house, and sees a limited time for himself to do the things he wants to do outside of work.

            This TotalDrama effort to get him to change is futile, imo, and the reluctance to accept his changed attitudes and behavior only makes for frustration. Some in TD say this hating is fun. “Good morning, haters” they say to each other in IRC. Another fine day to watch TWiT and hate it. I don’t get that. I don’t watch TV or go to movies that I hate. That makes no sense to me.

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          3. Good podcasts are just interesting people bullshitting on some sort of topic – my favorite podcast happens to be two guys who buy a snack, eat it and review it. The best TWiT shows were built on personalities – Steve Gibson, Paul Thurrott, Alex Lindsay. The shows work because they are knowledgable on a topic people are interested in and Leo knows how to drive that conversation for 90 minutes.

            The failure of TWiT is an attempt to engineer content. You will never get young, talented people in the Bay Area to stick around for any length of time – Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz, etc. were always going to go spread their wings eventually. But you need to be able to call up your Chad Johnsons and your Erik Lagans from the minors to fill that role when you do.

            Marketing Mavericks is a perfect example of an “overengineered” show – you can imagine the the team sitting in a room trying to figure out what bandwagon to jump on (see: the dumb Reddit show that exploded on the launch pad, the Minecraft show, etc.) .

            I want to bring something to your attention because I find it almost unbelievable. Take a look at the YouTube view counts for Marketing Mavericks.

            https://www.youtube.com/user/TWiTMavericks/videos

            The average show has around 60 views. The least popular episode has 11. It is not possible to only have 60 views on YouTube, regardless of how crappy or obscure your channel is. May I remind everyone that TWiT is an *internet video network*, all they do is publish and promote their content.

            Leo is smart, he knows this is a failure, and that “content as a service” is doomed when no one wants the content. He is also a human, and he has (literally) wed himself to this new lifestyle with Lisa and he is going to try to maintain it for as long as he can.

            I am very interested to see where all this ends up 5 years from now. I think a lot is contingent on that sweet AM Radio money continuing to flow in – if that goes away I really can’t imagine what the next move us. But I hope it’s interesting!

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    3. +99

      I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes, if someone is or is not a gold digger, if someone is spending all their money on vacations and sex swings, and honestly I don’t really care. But I agree AHAFTLOJ, the quality of the TWIT network has degraded terribly. I’m one of the lucky few whose shows are so good no amount of lateness, unpreparedness, eating on the air, dick pics, or sex swings will make it bad (WW, TWIT w/ JCD, and occasionally Security Now)

      But if some of the long-time “hosts” start leaving like Paul or Mary Jo or an extended absence of JCD then you’ll really know somethings up.

      BTW, the dirty jokes from Leo just keep coming! During Windows Weekly there was an Ashley Madison one. And I’m not saying Leo has to keep everything rated G, I just want a tech show!

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  20. No… Leo doesn’t have to keep “it” rated G, but it’s pretty hard for the chat mods to keep the live chat on point and family friendly when the owner of the chat room is becoming more of a dirty old pervert with no filter.

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  21. But then again, now that I think about, Leo recently said himself.. He want’s porn money.

    So the conclusion is, YES: Leo is in it for the money. And YES the quality doesn’t matter as long as he makes a lot of money. So if that is his intention, then I guess anything goes.

    So if you start with that as the premise, then what does that make Leo, Lisa + TWiT? What does that make them in the eyes of the advertisers? In the eyes of the audience? In the eyes of the TWiT team? An untrustworthy organization that is just out to maximize a profit. Even at the expense of the product. So in the long run it’s bad for everyone but Leo. Would you want to advertise your product on content like that? It would be like putting an ad in the Inquirer.

    Okay so if Leo want’s to be in that category, fine, but it doesn’t make it nobel or to be held in any high esteem .

    In fact where I come from, we call them snake oil salesmen.

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    1. Leo’s ranting about wanting to bring pornstars onto the network was already tried in the early 2000’s. It was called KSEXradio.com and failed miserably.

      You used to be able to find the mastermind of that clusterfuck preaching about Jesus on the Santa Monica Boulevard. If he’s still there, please say “Hi!” to Wankus. A nice guy. truly.

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  22. I think you could make a legit case for some porn stars appearing – Danni Ashe (now retired) did the coding for her, highly successful, website. Sasha Grey has done voice work for video games. I would bet that there are some others out there. I wouldn’t advocate porn stars just to have porn stars but if there is a legit connection the hell have em on. How could it be less tech related than O’Doctah?

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    1. Competition? It was bad enough catching Leo whacking himself over downloaded pics of Snoops tits and then having to work out how to move her to BYB.

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  24. Everyone here seems to agree that if you create quality, the money will follow. If all you chase is the money, you might win, you might lose.

    Why hasn’t Lisa assessed the guests on each show? Those guests are well-paid, and as a show’s popularity increases, so do Leo’s payments to them.

    Paul and Mary Jo you keep. Steve Gibson you keep. But on MacBreak Weekly, do you really need Rene and Andy? It used to be just Andy, but the fact is there isn’t a single person on that show with deep knowledge of Apple’s products. They’re all Android users, constantly berating Apple until it turns into MacBash Weekly. If you really hate Apple that much Leo, why are you on the show? Do you think a bunch of Apple fanboys want to listen to rail against Apple? That’s just crazy.

    If you’re going to do a show about Windows, don’t drone on about Google or Apple. If you’re going to do a show about Apple, don’t drone on about Facebook or your vacations. Leo should stick to the topics, but that problem is, he doesn’t know anything about them. His knowledge is so shallow that he can’t contribute anything but off-color comments.

    My point is: serve the audience. Get Leo off the shows where he can’t contribute anything worthwhile. TWiT is presumably paying the co-hosts for their expertise, they don’t need a sidekick for comic-relief.

    Don’t get me wrong, Leo is funny from time to time, but he so often derails conversations that it’s annoying.

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    1. Wait, you think Rene hates Apple? He practically gets a frog in his throat every time someone insults Apple on the show.

      He was meant to be Alex Lindsey’s replacement when Alex was rarely on. Guess they can’t can him now, plus he provides a connection to guests like Georgia Dow and Serenity Caldwell.

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  25. Salutary lesson for this site, thoughtful interesting contributions will keep the audience coming back, moronic drivel will lose the audience. The comments above have been interesting and insightful critiques of twit, bravo, more please.

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  26. Good well thought out comments. Leo gave control of twit to his wife. From that day on he washed his hands of day to day operations. He is smart enough to know what huge mistake he made. I don’t have a long viewing history with twit.
    I have noticed one thing that seems to be a constant downhill factor. Lisa

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    1. Hannibal: Exactly. I don’t have too much in common with the TotalDrama canon. I don’t think Elgam is very good, for example, but I don’t think he’s as awful as TD commenters make him out to be. Same for the rest of the TWiT crew.

      However with respect to Lisa I am in total agreement. She is horrible beyond words. I don’t believe anything she says. She is clearly out to subvert what’s left of the original TWiT to her own selfish ends. Her personality and laugh are transparently phony. Hawking TWiT snow globes and Tee shirts and other kitsch — just deplorable.

      Whatever happened to that pledge Leo and Lisa made 6 months ago on an Inside TWiT to do weekly Inside TWiTs? That was either the last Inside TWiT or there has only been one since that promise of open communication was made. I guess Lisa is so despised by not just TotalDrama peeps, but by the whole TWiT “community” as well that she cannot face the public anymore.

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