Lisa Laporte is a Failed CEO: Exhibit A

Editor’s Note: Happy New Year from the Total Drama Editorial Board

Lisa's failed TWiT: a retrospective
Lisa’s failed TWiT: a retrospective
Diving deeper into the concepts laid out in my State of the Drama Address, let’s now take a look at some of the older shows which were canceled since Lisa became CEO of TWiT and compare them to the failed shows developed under Lisa’s leadership.

When viewing the infographic above, it’s clear all of the new shows were developed specifically for the advertisers — or were just plainly bad ideas — whereas the old shows were centered around people and the TWiT audience. At one time, Leo was genuinely trying to build a tech network of diverse and interesting content, but we are well past that point now.

Hey Lisa and Leo, just admit it; you’re committing the ultimate sin: letting the ad sales department drive content! In some cases, advertising is the content.

Shame on you both.

67 thoughts on “Lisa Laporte is a Failed CEO: Exhibit A”

  1. Hey guys at least she is an equal opportunity destroyer. Not only does she destroy marriages and careers, she has her mind set on destroying what’s left of this pathetic network. Happy New Year TWIT, this is going to be your year, I can feel it

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  2. Seems like just a year ago Leo was hosting a 24-hour New Years Eve marathon that he said cost $100,000. Now he’s down to blowing $20,000 on a luxury cruise. Within two years from now he’ll probably be homeless and sleeping in the walkway of the soon-to-be-defunct Brick House.

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    1. In Behavioral Economics it is called anchoring. They probably justify the $20K+ cruise by the fact that it is really cheap compared to another option.

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  3. Game On was a good show and could have been great and remained on the network…but it seems like it was setup to fail from the start by Lisa. It was never given the proper attention on the network or the proper budget to do what it really needed to do. Lisa never wanted a gaming show. If Lisa doesn’t want it, TWIT doesn’t get it.

    And I miss Maxwell’s House 🙁

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    1. I miss Maxwell’s House too. About a year ago, Ray called into a show and spoke with Leo. Ray said he’d like to be back on TWiT in some capacity. He sounded a little shaky and down. He’d had some serious health problems, (cancer, I think, but I could be wrong) and seemed anxious to be more active at something again.

      Leo told Ray that he was missed and that he’d definitely be in touch with him about something for the future. I didn’t believe a word of it, but it sounded like Ray was fooled by the phony Leo. Of course, Ray has never been heard from since on TWiT. I’m sure Leo forgot about him as soon as the call was over. BASTARD.

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      1. Yes, Leo is a notorious liar and a phony. I heard this too. After the call he probably told someone to not let that guy ever get a call through again or expect someone to get fired.

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  4. I quit watching twit about 6 months ago. And my life is better for it. I wish the old twit sttill existed. But alas it is dead. Now I’m filled with anger at how it died and why. As someone else said in another post. Leos old life or life circumstances allowed a real and genuine care about audience and technology to do something innovative and meaningful. That old product is something I was proud to be a consumer of and supportter through word of mouth and maybe even patronage of a sponsor if it seemed useful. Now there is a vapid shallow dispassionate and narcisstic beach ball of a man married to a horsetoothed beanpole of a woman who apparently has the aesthetic and business accumen of a blind sewer rat with a cancerous growth. I still like Leo, or my memory of him. But its clear that the influence of his life situation over the last 3-5 years has really taken a turn for the worse . maybe this was the real Leo all along , oraybe its the influence of other people in his life. Or maybe he’s just getting old and feeling owed… No matter what. It sucks.

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    1. Wow this is good: “Now there is a vapid shallow dispassionate and narcisstic beach ball of a man married to a horsetoothed beanpole of a woman who apparently has the aesthetic and business accumen of a blind sewer rat with a cancerous growth.” Damned good writing, ITM!

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  5. Huh, I had forgotten about TWiT Photo.

    It was cancelled because it wasn’t tech-related enough, i.e. the co-host was super slutty and this infuriated the CeHO.

    But in summation, she’s a huge failure. Every show started under her has failed, Leo is not healthier and the content plain sucks. She could say she has succeeded in that their ad sales have gone up, but even that is BS because her ultimate goal was to make the business profitable without Leo hosting everything and she failed because all other shows are failures. Even Leo is so miserable that his shows are suffering big time. This business is unsustainable beyond a few short years.

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  6. These recent holiday posts and their comments are off the chain. I’m really enjoying them. Total Drama is at a crossroads. It can either grow, gain respect from the civilized world, and appeal to people over the age of 15 and influence developments at TWiT or it can let Helloworld post again.

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  7. A year ago Leo stated very clearly in “The Giz Fiz 100th Episode with Leo Laporte talking about TWiT”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htLGntVwLUI
    that TWiT is not a place good people want to work. He says that good TWiT people get offers from elsewhere and move on. He says that established good people elsewhere don’t want to come to TWiT. There is no greater indicator of CEO failure than creating a workplace where people don’t want to work for you.

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    1. She goes on the air and BRAGS about firing people. Who wants to deal with that? And do not kid yourself, Leo is not better than she is. He recently said the best employees should just shut the fuck up and do what they are told. Neither of these two have any concept of teamwork or collaboration. That is why it is the ALL LEO network.

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  8. The only thing I can blame her for GAME ON failing was that L&L refused to put any type of advertising into the show. The show was rough around the edges, yes, but it was still brand new when it was cancelled. They didn’t even give it time to grow and used the lack of viewers as the excuse to get rid of it. It didn’t fail because of the content, it failed because no one knew the show existed.

    Also, they didn’t come up with the idea for the show from what I remember. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that GAME ON was the tipping point for TWIT. Some may say Tom and/or Erik leaving was the start of TWITs demise, but I personally think it was when GAME ON was cancelled is when things started going down hill.

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    1. I agree. TWIT bringing in talent like Veronica and then burning her right away….There was a whole whirlwind of events when Game On was cancelled that I think left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths. It was the beginning of the end for TWIT.

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    1. Yeah. “Munchcast” I quite liked when they would do the weekend tapings for it – whimsical, informative, etc. and great banter – and I’m not even that much of a “foodie”, but they seemed to hit a sweet spot in tone and content.

      The real irony to the cancellation of that food-based show is that Leo’s on-air consumption and drooling appetite for food grew exponentially since that time, so if there were ever a show that could engage him and capture his current passions on the network it would be “Munchcast”, but it’s sadly no more. Perhaps he simply needed to bust out of that single-show format and let his food lust overrun all.

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  9. You call TWiT Photo a good show? Literally, every show turned into:

    Catherine Hall: “Oh! I just love your work”
    Guest: “And I love your work too”
    Catherine Hall: “But I love your work more”
    Guest: “And I love your work more as well”
    Catherine Hall: “But I love yours more”
    Guest: “And I love your work even more”

    After about 10 rounds of this mutual ass kissing and no conversation of technique, I literally quit subscribing to the podcast as it was a waste of band width to download and a waste of my time. Catherine Hall was an absolute lousy host and had little knack for being able to describe how she took a picture other than to brag that she uses Canon ‘L’ lenses. And for her not to be able to describe the advantages and disadvantages of the EF 85mm F/1.2L vs the EF 85mm F/1.8 was a huge shame.

    Now Maxwell’s House had to be the best show TWiT has every produced and it is a shame that the show was killed because Leo could not sell it to advertisers. The problem here was that the people purchasing ads may not have been sophisticated enough to understand the subject matter. Plus, Leo and the CEHo may have been scared when Ray Maxwell would go into some rant that many uninformed liberals would consider ‘heresy’ and conspiracy theory when it does not dove tail perfectly into the agenda of the Democratic climate change believers. This makes Leo upset when you do not agree with his view of the world. Adam Curry and JCD are good examples of what happens when you disagree with Leo on one of his shows.

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    1. Well, CH was pretty bad on camera but she did have the photographer contacts.

      I enjoyed watching the different pros, remember the guy who did photos for liquor ads and such blowing my mind with live demos.

      I think it’s not even the quality of the show that is pertinent here, it’s the fact that Lisa canned it using the excuse it wasn’t tech-related enough. Because shows like Marketing Mavericks are tech related? Lisa hasn’t got a clue and her excuses are lame, she was probably jealous of CH.

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  10. This is the link of Total Drama coverage of the event when poor Ray Maxwell called in and was lied to: https://totaldrama.net/2014/10/petaluma-psycho/

    On broadcast television, when you see Kelly Ripa welcome a guest, kiss and hug and seemingly like the guest it’s bull shit. Kelly doesn’t like every guest and is not happy everyday. But the audience knows that.
    The problem with Leo is that he doesn’t know where this ends and lying begins. He violates the trust of his audience daily with actual lies. He doesn’t understand the difference between what Kelly does and his outright lying about everything.

    Some people think his problem is being too open, I don’t. The problem is being open when you can’t stop lying.

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    1. GhostDog,
      Well written comment. I can see those beady black eyes of Lisa. She makes zero contribution to TWIT. She moved up the ladder quick at TWIT. She must have a vast skill set we are not aware of.

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  11. They say everything bad thats happened to America recently has their origins in the Nixon administration.

    Now we can add another idiom.

    Everything bad or unsatisfactory about TWiT is the result of Lisa Kentzell / Laporte scanty business acumen, and mindless idiotic meddling.

    Leo hasn’t helped with his bad bedtime spouse choices either!

    Are we sure she got any practical qualifications whatsoever other than sleeping her way to the top of the business? Her incessant lying on the various shows is indicative of her floored character. Personally, I doubt she has any qualification from the University of Phoenix correspondence school as stated on LinkedIn and other than a dropout.

    Can the HR team at TotalDrama or one of it’s readers get some references and confirmation of her business awareness from this correspondent school.

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  12. As far as I am aware their business course isn’t accredited so it’s pretty much the same as courses offered on iTunes.
    From Wikipedia
    “[44] Because Phoenix’s business programs are not accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), some companies will not provide tuition reimbursement for employees attending Phoenix.”

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    1. Point taken, but the whole show was conceived and created for the sole purpose of running ads for GE’s ecomagination challenge.

      So the advertising drove the content. Which is like the slimiest thing you can do in publishing, broadcasting etc.

      Many other shows canceled were created to appeal to advertisers.

      That’s not how great content works. It should be:

      1) create great content that appeals to the audience
      2) generate an audience
      3) monetize

      NOT

      1) figure out what advertisers want
      2) slap some shit together
      3) watch it fail

      I guess the Lisa didn’t learn that from Phoenix School of Business and her 20+ years experience in startups.

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      1. Oh, it was a scummy show, no question. It just doesn’t fit with “cancelled”.

        I’m only pointing it out. It wasn’t meant as an assault on the (well done) post or anything. Merely a small detail worth noting and little more.

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    1. Are you against FLOSS, or Schwartz? If they killed off FLOSS Weekly they may as well pack up and go home as far as any claims to be a genuine tech network go.

      The world of FLOSS is huge and there’s something for everybody, as long as they have some technical inclination.

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  13. The real problem with ALL shows is that they ALL discuss the exact same news stories with maybe a little slant. This week in Google discusses the same crap as Mac Breaks Weekly and the same as the Tech Guy, Screen Saver and Twit. All the shows that Leo does are the exact same show with different people. Then there were a bunch of shows with tech sluts such as Veronica Belmont and Kiki Stanford. Lisa has tried to change this model and has failed because Leo likes to be in everything. He would have better off not meeting Lisa and doing ONE GOOD show from a home studio or the old cottage. If he wants to do a million shows he could do the ONE GOOD show five times a week.

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  14. The last several blogs and comments have been a night and day improvement over the ones running here in recent months. They are getting to the actual horror show of what Lisa has done to TWIT and the horror show that is Lisa herself. Congrats to everyone involved.

    I’ll bet L&L are hoping Total Drama gets back to the irrelevant baloney posts since they are so absurd they pose no threat to their “network.”

    Overheard in a two story suite on a cruise ship in the Caribbean:

    Leo, “These Total Drama posts are starting to scare me! They’re hitting us where we live!”
    Lisa, “Don’t worry next week, they’ll be back to film girl has a smelly vage and she never washes her hair.”
    Leo, “Well, I hope so.”

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  15. Content, schmontent – it’s the bottom line that matters babies and we’re rollin in thec ash.

    TWiTs job is to make money, so shut about broken down Ray Maxwell or sexxy Catherine Hall – we’re doing great! (any of you sad sacks can afford $30k vacations three time a year?)

    Eat my cunt!!

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      1. And Lisa Bettany was the replacement for Chris Marquardt and his co-promotion of Tips From the Top Floor with Leo on The Tech Guy show. Plus Chris had a couple of ‘take over the cottage’ days 7-8 years ago. Such good times that were pi$$ed away by chasing pussy.

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    1. EXACTLY! Even talented writers who can sum it all up in a single, beautifully written sentence are suddenly coming out of the woodwork on Total Drama to comment. I know it won’t last, but I’m enjoying it while it does.

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      1. Dear cgarison,

        The proper way to use the word toss in a sentence about RR is like this:

        “Rene Ritchie can TOSS my salad.”

        I hate that know-it-all prick, although I am pretty sure he is hetro, unlike the portly Andy A. who is very late acknowledging his homosexuality.

        With the addition of the hard-rock foamer Darrimple (who the fuck did he blow @ Apple to become as blessed as Walt Mossberg???), MBW is another podcast I no longer listen to.

        Rene Ritchie isn’t even worthy of being my royal bum wiper (aka “The Groom of the Stool”)

        Regards,

        JBJ

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  16. For me, what is very telling of the current, dire, situation at TWiT is, during Sunday, This Week in Tech , the chatroom no longer has an overflow channel, like it did during the hey-day of TWiT a few years back.

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    1. Also those Sunday panels are missing JCD. That is also a huge problem. I remember when JCD used to hang out in #offtopic during the shows and chat with those in that room about wine and other frivolous shit as leo blathered.

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    2. Rusty B.

      Respectfully, I was pointing this out (the dwindling #twitlive population during TWiT) in irc.totaldrama for more than 12 months.

      ITM MOTHER FUCKER!

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      1. I don’t doubt that TWiT is in decline, but another reason for the marked decline of chatters in #twitlive is probably the Draconian and capricious over-moderation of the channel. It’s possible that the downloads have held up better than the chat numbers due to the unpleasantness of the chat. Unless all you have to say is that you love everything about TWiT #twitlive is not a place you’re going to feel at home in. 100’s have left for this reason.

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  17. TWiT is nothing more than a tax write off for the gadgets etc he buys. All he has to do is show or mention it on his shows and they become a job related expense. Kind of makes you wonder if he was also able to write the $20,000 cruise off as a job related expense since he made mention of it in pretty much every show on TWiT.

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  18. And I know that ‘Green Tech Today’ was a show that was put together for GE’s Ecomangination promotion, but I was horribly saddened that the content of this show was not picked up for a regular series. Kiki Sanford and Becky Worley pulled together several well produced episodes and I believe they could have had many more in the pipes had Lisa and Leo not been so lazy in selling the content to advertisers. The only problem that I see that happened was that those buying advertising from interests outside of the beltway and those not in California forgot about the ‘save the environment/climate change revolution,’ so the dollars were not there to continue producing the series. It was sad either way because I learned many new facts about being a better conservator of the Earth despite the fact that I am a man-made climate change denier. Just because I deny ‘global warming’ does not mean that I don’t want clean water and more renewable energy that makes the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil and cheaper ways to consume energy. Just more of a pile-on to add to the failures of TWiT.

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  19. Ha fucking ha!

    LaPorke tweets:

    “Snagged an earlier @VirginAmerica flight on standby, comfortably settled in, then kicked off because the plane was overweight! Ouch.

    Th weird thing is that after they kicked us off they put three other people into our seats.”

    Yoko probably bitched about the view. “Stewardess, … ”

    (Best part, they don’t have to give a reason.)

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  20. i thought it would be appropriate to do something i like to do in my work life from time to time. we work hard, we focus, and sometimes we get lost up our own asshole, or even a wicked witchs cunt. As a result, we forget what good looks like.

    This has happened without a doubt on Twit. Leo and others have lost all concept of what good is for netcast shows, and therefore the passion and inspiration has been sucked up into the vortex of University of Phoenix skank hole. Sure we can begrudge having donated money or buying a brick when the wealth rolls in, but I think what garners the negative reaction is that the wealth rolls in and the quality goes to shit. So lets have a little reminder of what could have been provided as content for the price of the cruise which although providing fodder for comment is not as engaging as a show would be. oh, and Leo, notice how many youtube views good content can get, mm kay?? I present to you now, something i clicked on for a second, and stayed engaged in to watch to the end. That Leo could have done for the cost of his cruise.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI&feature=youtu.be

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    1. Thank you for sharing that. It’s true, there are people producing amazing quality content and getting millions of views.

      Leo on the other hand is so arrogant, he assumes his content is good. TWiT never even takes a good objective view of what they are putting out there.

      My point in posts like this is to point out exactly that! If you have all that money, and resources, produce something great!

      He like to call YouTubers. “pewtie pies”. But truth is, time and time again, I find on YouTube, quality reviews, in-depth unboxings, and how twos. Funny how I never see the blue humor, and unprofessionalism though.

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