This Was The Best of TWiT in 2020: Ant Pruitt Knew Chadwick Boseman and his “Sister”

To watch Ant’s award-winning performance in 1080p, go fullscreen

As we close out 2020 we must report on the absolutely devastating year it’s been for TWiT, its staff, and some of its shows. We also have our pick for the best TWiT moment of 2020.

Harvard graduate gets fired by college dropout… this is literally the American Dream.

It appears that hearing Leo Laporte constantly complain about not being able to take a vacation was the final straw for Karsten Bondy, who turned in his resignation letter last month. We’re totally kidding… he was unceremoniously fired like past employees.

Karsten had been slavishly working with Leo his entire life, from the days of Dev Null to ZDTV, to TechTV and most recently, TWiT. He even won a California Emmy. But it appears that his dedication and loyalty to the fat man meant absolutely nothing. As CEO Lisa Laporte once merrily quipped “I like to fire people before Christmas, it stings more that way.”

CEO of TWiT Lisa Laporte pictured here with one of her best ideas

Furthermore, cutting dead weight was again a theme at TWiT this year. As recently announced on TWiT’s website, this year saw the end of some stellar and not-so-stellar shows. Gone is the extremely entertaining (and primary stockpile of Heil microphones) Ham Nation. Also gone is Ask The Tech Guy, Hands-On Android, Hands-On iOS, Hands-On Mac, and Hands-On Wellness. I have to say that all these shows were a steaming pile of merda, and anyone who watched must have realized they were simply a way to recycle the same drab content over and over again.

Man wins Oscar For Best Imagination at a Sham Podcast Company Run by a Gold Digging Succubus

Last by not least, in honor of TWiT recently releasing their “Best of” shows, we asked our crack research team to search the thousands of hours captured on our DVR for the definitive “Best Of TWiT 2020” and the video above was the winning entry.

We look forward to enthusiastically covering the TWiT train wreck for many years to come, unless something like the economy puts it out of its misery. That being said Happy New Year from all of us at TotalDrama, and remember to remain in your basement at all times, just like Dr. Fauci ordered.

If you see anything newsworthy please (1) visit our chat room, or (2) leave an anonymous comment below, or (3) submit a tip by clicking on “Feedback & Tips” to the right. Thanks again to the anonymous guy from Florida who provides our research team with the best leads.

135 thoughts on “This Was The Best of TWiT in 2020: Ant Pruitt Knew Chadwick Boseman and his “Sister””

      1. King Leo Laporte: TWiT sponsors being gutted once again

        Just noticed today that http://twit.tv/sponsors now redirects to https://twit.tv/advertise and there is no list of sponsors anymore. So decided to use our friend Archive.org see the last time that sponsor page was last copied by them which was on January 3, 2021. Then I decided to go back 1 year at a time for as long as Archive.org had something available and see if I could track the number of sponsors TWiT said they had. This is what I found..

        3-Jan-2021 – 18 sponsors
        17-Apr-2020 – 27
        10-Jan-2-19 – 30
        21-Jan-2018 – 26
        5-Feb-2017 – 33
        12-Mar-2016 – 36
        1-Jan-2015 – 35
        25-Jan-2014 – 29
        1-Jul-2013 – 28
        27-Jan-2012 – 15
        8-Jan-2011 – 15
        4-Sep-2010 – 16

        It seems after 8 years of having at least 26 sponsors and averaging 30 a year during that time, TWiT is back to early 2010 levels, and just half the number the sponsors it had just 5 years ago!!

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    1. Thought that was done by Leo. Think I saw him get upset that was allowed on air. He was disturbed by someone’s comment. Now he is asking viewers to rate content on the viewer’s favorite Podcast.

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  1. If you have noticed the terrible streaming quality lately, that too is by design.

    From what I was told Leo has already informed the primary hosts that he will only stay on to host TWIT, Mac Break, and Security Now through 2021 and nothing else. He will leave Windows & Google sometime in 2021, & is planning his big exit in 2022. But will not shut down the network entirely & instead choosing to license each show out to whichever hosts decide to continue on.

    My bet, all the hosts will decline & everything will go away in 2022.

    I was the guy who told folks last summer on twitter that he was leaving iOS Today. That wasn’t even confirmed yet. His 2021/22 plans are confirmed though, I got it straight from a hosts sibling.

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    1. We appreciate the inside info. We normally hold off on publishing any stories until Leo carelessly opens his big mouth and confirms. But it shouldn’t take long because he has a serious problem keeping things to himself.

      Thanks again for providing the info.

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  2. Good lord, worse podcast host i have ever seen getting fake emotional and pretending he knew a 1-hit wonder failed actor & his imaginary sister. That is insane.

    Then a bunch of old washed up white liberals virtue signaling their fake praise to something they know is not true.

    Liberalism is a mental illness and these people are lunatics.

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    1. casia:
      …..
      Then a bunch of old washed up white liberals virtue signaling their fake praise to something they know is not true.

      Liberalism is a mental illness and these people are lunatics.

      Oh please, anyone who actually believes Leo and his fake ‘old leftist hippie’ babble is just as naive and clueless. He may try to portray being liberal but if you actually pay any attention, his life is all about self-serving consumerism. The exact opposite of a liberal lifestyle. His quirky hesitation to never take a stand on public vs privatized schools, his refusal to accept that private corporations should and have to be regulated because they never will do so themselves, his massive accumulation of only premium gadgetry (as opposed to much more modest things that most consumers own and use), and so on all indicate he’s very much a conservative libertarian. Breaking up huge conglomerates is something liberal, and something that Leo finds distasteful. So Leo is a liberal? Not hardly.
      Of course that’s what Leo wants, for his audience to believe what he says, not necessarily what he actually does.

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      1. socially liberal but fiscally conservative is still considered liberal in today’s world. But I get your point, he is a seperatist and will ultimately do what it takes to protect his privilege.

        besides calling out liberalism these days often means just pointing out their virtue signaling identity politics. old school liberals were actually good people.

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      2. Leo’s ex-wife Jennifer confirmed to one of Leo’s phone sex partners that “Leo was a pathological liar, just like his Dad.” The poor woman had moved to the west Coast to be with Leo when he jilted her. The was just after the Laura Burnstein fiasco where Leo had to get a restraining order against Laura after carting her all over New York in-between blow jobs.

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    2. casia:
      Good lord, worse podcast host i have ever seen getting fake emotional and pretending he knew a 1-hit wonder failed actor & his imaginary sister. That is insane.

      Then a bunch of old washed up white liberals virtue signaling their fake praise to something they know is not true.

      Liberalism is a mental illness and these people are lunatics.

      Yeah unlike conservative sub-humans like yourself who seem real sane. Drink bleach to cure the COVID you dont think exists just like your conman moron overlord told you to. Or better yet, violently invade the capitol to bring on the “storm” Q promised on 4Chan. Oh right… Those aren’t “REAL conservatives!!!”, just 100% of trump voters and 80% of the GOP.

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  3. This may be the greatest video you have ever posted. An incredible crock of steaming hot shit. everyone left at this “network” of “Netcasts you love, from people you trust” should quit now. It jumped the shark a few years back and needs to go belly up. All Leo proved was that he is a laughing hyena and the biggest phony, ever.

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  4. TWiT.TV always regurgitated the same “news” from show to show. Notably going from non-Laporte hosted shows to Laportes where he would imply it was all new and rarely crediting that he leeches it from the more informative shows where the drivel and self obsessed blow harding verbal diarrhea of Leo was absent.

    I did notice that on a recent video made by Marques Brownlee that Leo was omitted as one of the early sources of Tech news that led all the people doing tech videos like him. I doubt he will be guesting much in the future unless Leo can’t find another to make up the numbers for him to whine about no vacations and how expensive it is to run a strip mall studio

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    1. Tim Buck: I did notice that on a recent video made by Marques Brownlee that Leo was omitted as one of the early sources of Tech news that led all the people doing tech videos like him.

      Wow not even a passing mention, that’s gotta sting. I downloaded a copy of the vid and it will become part of a future story. Thanks.

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  5. 4 years slaving there. Leo calls his soft throbber Mr.
    Winkles. Every time he got caught in one of his embarrassments he’d do that “himm-himm” smirk and say Mr. Winkles got him in trouble again. He was inappropriate to Sarah and Mugs more times than I could count. Andy is uncomfortably weird. Brian Brushwood can tell you how Leo is not a nice guy. So can others. He has a disconnect that people aren’t worth anything to him and he gets bored with anyone in moments. That’s why he has no friends. He tossed Karsten they tell me. Karsten has been with him forever and now what does he do? And they say Leo is tired of the whole game and wants to retire but he can’t. Advertising problems and all. Everyone in every town has a podcast now and with Facebook and Google taking 98% of all ad revenue, that means everyone else on the planet splits the remaining 2%. All I can tell you is Mr. Winkles will be the end of him. It’s not like he graduated from Yale, he didn’t. Who quits Yale to become a radio DJ at a milk toast music station in California? And who giggles and makes dirty 7th grader jokes at his age? He’s not the wonderful warm friend his on air makes himself out to be.

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  6. The last time I sat true this much drivel was Saturday on Trumps phone call. Surprised Leo didn’t cut his mic, you can see the cringe on his face, then his high-ness Jeff chimes in– good for a chuckle.

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  7. Jason Howell outlives another TWiT employee this year, somehow. He masks his survival skills well.
    2020 must prove detrimental to TWiT’s ability to cook the books with advertisers. Unless iTunes went haywire and caused a bunch of new podcast subs to join the zombie army from a decade ago to auto-download these shows, his growth is not going to match those seen by random middle school children on Youtube and Twitch seen this year when everyone is “working” from home.

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    1. QuicksilverHints: 2020 must prove detrimental to TWiT’s ability to cook the books with advertisers.

      1 – Heard the following quote at 25:59 said by podcast consultant Paul Colligan during the Podcaster’s Roundtable podcast #142 from May 2020..

      “IAB hit Leo LaPorte really hard”

      Unfortunately this was not discussed any further on the podcast

      2 – Today I decided to revisit a 2.5 year old post I made on here that can be found here – https://totaldrama.net/2018/07/leo-laporte-says-twit-is-going-down-the-tubes/#comment-35257

      To summarize that post, I found that in July 2012, TWiT had 26 (13 audio, 13 video) shows listed in the top 100 of the technology category at Podbay.fm. Six years later in July 2018, TWiT had 7 audio shows listed in the same category.

      So today I decided to see how many TWiT shows are listed in that same technology category at http://podbay.fm/browse/technology.. and I found 2 listed in the top 200…

      20 – Theeee Tech Guy (audio)
      71 – iOS Today (audio)

      Tom Merritt now has the same number of top 200 shows as Leo..

      33 – Daily Tech News Show
      191 – Daily Tech Headlines

      What happened to all of the other TWiT shows?? iOS Today wasn’t even listed in the top 100 the other two times I surveyed the top 100. Where are This Week in Tech. Security Now , MacBreak Weekly, Tech News Weekly , Windows Weekly, and This Week in Google, which were all listed in the July 2018 top 100?? They are not even in the top 200 now!!

      Leads credence to the idea that IAB podcasts download standards really did hurt TWiT’s numbers.

      Fun Fact – Leo’s cartoon face podcast cover art is the only one showing any person wearing a face mask in the technology top 200. Perhaps he likes to show that he is sanitized for our protection!!

      Cue ‘ Yakety Sax ‘

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      1. I remember seeing a list similar to why you mention in the 2012 era. At the time I knew nothing or very little about twit. It’s most of the reason I started listening to many of the shows.

        I think even in 2016 twit still had a ton of shows in the top 100. Twit was very dominate. That’s when my podcast life really started.

        The downfall and/or lack of growth is astonishing.

        I will say as I explored the shows I really appreciated the video and at the time superior audio quality. I think people forget how God awful most podcast audio was only a few years ago. Some shows were nearly unbearable. The biggest problem I had with most twit shows was that they seemed to be too long and often just too boring to be a regular listener. And then there is the politics that started seeping in. But that’s most podcasts these days.

        I’ve really appreciated this website. I’ve gone through it for hours and hours from time to time and find it addicting. I had no idea so much has gone on.

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      2. It is hard to believe that The tech guy is beating out Tom’s show. He puts a lot of effort into his productions. Unlike Leo who just “wings it” and shows up unprepared.

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    2. Jason is a trained killer and makes it clear that he is a little nutty and might actually come to Leo’s house and kill Leo and Lisa — or not. It’s an act, but Leo is so dumb that he will only get rid of Jason by folding the network. “Why take a chance?”

      At the moment the only advertisers Leo is getting are the new companies who are stupid enough to advertise on Twit. It’s dicey.

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  8. Why didn’t Leo talk about Trump getting kicked off all the social media sites on his radio show yesterday? Or about Parler getting deplatformed by Big Tech? He seemed to allude to these stories, saying they were too “depressing” to talk about, but I suspect it’s because he’s a free speech advocate and knows that this stance is no longer favorable with his totalitarian leftist tech industry buddies.

    Maybe he’ll talk about it on today’s show. Or more likely he’ll talk about Draft Kings now allowing betting on drone races instead.

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    1. Dominic Toretto:
      Why didn’t Leo talk about Trump getting kicked off all the social media sites on his radio show yesterday? Or about Parler getting deplatformed by Big Tech? He seemed to allude to these stories, saying they were too “depressing” to talk about, but I suspect it’s because he’s a free speech advocate and knows that this stance is no longer favorable with his totalitarian leftist tech industry buddies.

      Agree. Leo strikes me as a “classical liberal”. One of the saner ones, not actually evil. Does what he has to in order to survive in the industry.

      Would be sorry to see him and/or the network totally gone. Yet, do enjoy this site’s content as a guilty pleasure…holding elite feet to the fire has value. Thank you

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  9. And now this ass clown turn off comments on every YouTube video of his.
    He is so far left.
    Guess he doesn’t like his viewer to have free speech, that goes against his narrative.

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  10. Not sure if someone has commented about this, or left the link to the blog. But TWiT have stopped posting on places like Twitter. I can’t remember the blog where it has been posted (I think it’s Leo’s own site) – it’s not on the main twit.tv/blog page.

    Also while I was tuning in, before MacBreak Weekly started, it seems TWiT is looking into crowd funding because ads have slowed down so much. Not new info I know, but interesting they’re really looking into it now. Panic mode maybe?

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    1. Fuck you, how do you like that?: Also while I was tuning in, before MacBreak Weekly started, it seems TWiT is looking into crowd funding because ads have slowed down so much. Not new info I know, but interesting they’re really looking into it now. Panic mode maybe?

      In the early days at the Cottage, Leo considered all these avenues including a donation model that he ran parallel to the regular operation for a while. He always thought it was beneath him and not professional for a “Network.”

      After all he was trying to out-do TechTV at the time. Once he got the Ford sponsorship, which was an experiment at Ford, it all went to his head. He immediately bought a Mustang and started kissing the Ford butt as much as he could thinking he was now on easy street. This triggered his leaving his wife, running off with the bookkeeper who was also dazzled by Ford money, and deciding he was a big shot who needed a multi-million dollar studio. (Which became the Brickhouse).

      The Ford deal only lasted until Ford realized that it was a huge waste of money and they pulled the plug. Leo, now irked, sold the Mustang and bought an Audi since Lisa did not like the lowly Mustang as it was beneath her. The momentum was on Leo’s side though and his phony-baloney numbers kept things cooking. The jig is now up. The end is near.

      If he loses his radio show on top of shuttering Twit, he’s fucked because he spends too much money to please Lisa.

      To make matters worse, everyone hates him.

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      1. Leo also doesn’t want to put the network behind a paywall because in his own words “The TWiT audience is very technical”. What he really means is there’s talented people on this site that would just rip the content and put it on Bit Torrent. It’s not like there would be a demand for TWiT content here because like others have said every man and his dog has a podcast now. I guess it would just serve for archive purposes.

        I can only see big TWiT whales paying for the content, like the people in the chatroom and the radio show listeners. Would that be enough? Who knows, but before MBW they’re plan isn’t to go on a mainstream platform like Patreon.

        TWiT is even on Twitch, but you can’t chat in the chat, you can’t subscribe (Amazon Prime, gift or buy one) you can’t send cheers or tips. Imagine if they just ‘let it be’ and have all that stuff open. Nope, instead, you have to go into TWiT’s own IRC. Leo/the other hosts are too lazy to thank people doing Twitch stuff, but it’s revenue at the end of the day. And you can’t chat on Twitch is because TWiT just wants control, hence why they’ve turned off comments on YouTube so they don’t have to police anything, just their own garbage chatroom.

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        1. Oh, and by turning off comments on YouTube it makes their engagement on the platform trash tier. I’ve seen a few comment on here about this. They are killing their own YT channel, so that’s a good thing in a way them turning the comments off. Surely they know about YT and the whole engagement thing, though.

          I’m not sure if having the Twitch stuff all off effects them – although their viewer count has been under 100 viewers for quite some time on Twitch.

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      2. I was thinking about TWIT a few weeks back when my other podcasts were doing their best of shows. I usually skip them because they are boring but the DH unplugged one was worth listening to. I remember when Leo was such a big deal that he would have huge New Year’s eve broadcasts with all kinds of people dropping in. If he tried that now it would be Lisa, the special boy, and the cat. He should have quit while he was ahead.

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        1. OldPodcastFan: I remember when Leo was such a big deal that he would have huge New Year’s eve broadcasts with all kinds of people dropping in.

          The first time they held the 24 hour NYE party is the last time I watched anything on that network. It was fun and I watched a lot of it, but by then Tom had left and you could see that that was the moment things were starting to go down hill.

          We all were big fans of that network and the talent back in the day, but today it is such a shell of its former glory, it’s unbearable. So many bad decisions were made and egos getting in the way.

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  11. RIP Karsten. You always tried to jump into conversations on Macbreak. Beats listening to Andy drone on about Gilbert and Sullivan or the Tonight Show though.

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  12. Seasonal Tale TM

    There was a man, known to the tech world, but not for his teachings of tech.

    He called himself The Tech God.

    One day, he was walking among the plebs in the market of Petaluma, but only because his new chariot had yet to be delivered.

    A young woman, head down, lost in her thoughts of The Rona and a mythical check for 2000 Ducats, crossed his path.

    Due to his pretentious ego, his protruding belly brushed against the young woman as she passed, and at that moment he felt a sudden drain on his Pride leaving his body.

    “Who has touched me in such an inappropriate way?” called out the TTG.

    The young woman stopped, turned and looked up at TTG. She replied “I’m sorry I didn’t… wait, aren’t you the Dick Pic Guy?”

    And at that moment, the woman’s angst was instantly healed by the shame rising on the face of TTG. “Wait ‘till I share this on my Social Parchments!” she cried out in laughter.

    The crowd that had formed looked upon him with recognition and growing amusement. TTG called out over the rising roar of laughter, “No, no leave her!.. she’s one of those Total Drama Trolls.” and with that he turned and hurried away as best as his corpulence would allow.

    The moral of the story, no matter how dark things seem, there’s always TTG.

    Peace.

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  13. It is just astounding to me that Leo thinks ANYONE believes his bullshit that “we don’t want to track our audience”. Come on. We all know that Leo won’t track his audience because such data would prove that people download his shows, but never listen to them, or skip the ads.

    And now he wants to charge $7 a month for an ad-free subscription? No one is listening, so now why would anyone pay him for something they aren’t listening to?

    So desperate. So pathetic. So Leo.

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  14. The Buy a Brick 2020 Edition. Subscribers will get an exclusive members only feed of Andy Inhatko rambling for 5 hours about Johnny Carson’s prostate exams, Alex Lindsay reminiscing about the time George Lucas’s assistant gave him a reach around behind Skywalker Ranch and Lisa Laporte showing off on the sex swing.

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  15. My main concern is that (Public Intellectual) Professor (CUNY) Jeff Jarvis’ “number of the week” may end up behind the firewall. Any news on this welcome.
    The previous administration took no steps to preserve this wisdom – will be interesting to see what the new presidency brings.

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  16. Well, holy shit they really did do it.

    For a measly $7 a month, you get privileged Discord access, and you get to talk to Leo, and the other hosts just sit there ignoring the caller.

    This is fucking laughable.

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  17. Arrests coming soon.
    Why no lawsuits?
    Military leaders alerted.
    Dick pics assembled.
    Illuminati left in the dark.
    Masons floored.
    Knights Templar caught daydreaming.
    New World Order in disarray.

    Where we go number one, Leo is full of number two.
    PAnon

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    1. Why are they calling them podcasts instead of netcasts like they used to? I thought Leo had an eternal beef with the podfather Adam Curry. Must be a secret longing for daddy’s validation.

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  18. Can’t believe I used to go to this site every day. I used to listen to TWIT and saw how it went downhill first-hand and then I took to reading this site and got many a good laugh but that time has passed like a fart in the wind.

    Y’all really need to learn how to let go. TWIT and Leo are terrible and he’s a has-been hack who surrounds himself with sycophants but you don’t have waste so much energy on it when you could be doing something constructing like jerking off. It’s like being the mushroom growing on the cow turds.

    in other words, rest in poop totaldrama.net

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  19. Leo and his TWiT sycophants haven’t been relevant in years, hence the death of this website. We all got to enjoy the downfall in live time. Now with registration required for the IRC chat, and comments disabled on every YouTube video there’s no way to poke the bear.

    My only surprise is that he still has that shitty strip mall studio. I thought for sure he’d be broadcasting out of his home office with 1-2 employees max.

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  20. This twit’s passed on! This show is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet ‘its maker! This site’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the web it’d be pushing up the daisies! It’s metabolic processes are now history! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-TWIT!!

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  21. Goodbye total drama, we hardly knew ye. Almost Feb 2022 and I can report that here at the TWIT strip mall studio, you can still smell the ripping fart a lady guest laid in one part of the studio over a year ago. It literally stuck to the walls and remains a post-culinary mystery. Beef? Chicken? Fish? It’s not either. I’m guessing she’s veggie and this is one of those plant protein rectal emissions. It’s my best guess. Leo still giggles if you say “tits” and then he’ll read a chess article. He literally has no friends. Everyone is getting older, and the younger guys like MKBHD have become the relevant tech sources now. Sometimes when they’ve left for the evening and I put stuff away and lock up for the night, I swear if I listen closely I can hear Sarah Laine bravely standing up to harassment from the boss, and the ham radio guys wondering why women are not interested in them, I can hear promises of a new Spinright update coming in 2030, I hear John Dvorak asking for free stuff, Karsten Bondi’s bowtie spinning by itself while lighting up, Dick DeBartolo bending over and passing the butter, a priest with an ethernet cable coming out his butt, Ozzie the Dog stuffed and mounted with a bluetooth switch that makes his dog wanker move, a sex swing, a dick pick, another embarrassing text. Oh heck, I’m just waxing nostalgic.

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  22. First Elon steals his Chief Twit title and now this… truly an end of an era in radio.

    After many years as host of “The Tech Guy” on more than 200 radio stations nationwide, radio veteran and Premiere Networks-syndicated personality Leo Laporte announced his decision to retire from radio at the end of the year. Laporte shared the news with his audience on Saturday, November 19. His last show will be January 1, 2023.

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      1. Curious Carl:
        So why is the radio show really ending? It doesn’t seem likely to me that Leo would just up and quit and walk away from all that money.

        There is one Twit show I still watch, and he did say on that show that the reason he quit doing the radio show was that it cost him more to produce/maintain the radio infrastrucutre he needed than he was getting in revenue from it.

        And that’s one case where I actually believe him.

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  23. how things have fallen: Now along with ads in the shows, they are running house ads begging for more advertisers. Literally a 3 minute house ad of Leo begging companies to advertise on TWiT.

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  24. Glad the sites back up so at least we can have some conversation about this failing network. And since Kiwi Farms got taken down, the internet has been really boring lately, and there’s nothing to laugh at.

    I checked in on the YouTube live feed after, I think 2 years or so now. Wow, how they’ve fallen, way less advertisers now, and as the above have said the in-house ad about advertisers is just so desperate.

    I still see they hate YouTube engagement, no YouTube memberships (which I mean, I can understand with YouTube’s 30% cut) but it’d be an option. They’d rather push Club TWiT instead, which to me seems pretty worthless for what you actually get. They should take a look at other streamers and what they do. Instead though, they’re in their own bubble on their own island.

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    1. When leo got the Ford deal, he tougth it was the beging, but in reality was the peak of TWIT and everything is going dowhill from there.

      Hard to justify the work of lisa and Art-is-anal as an advertising agency and all it can offer is a standar 30% – 70% split any plataform would do for anyone with a mic and a couple of free hours to do a podcast, so the double down on the “club” wich is basically a pay pal suscription

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      1. Remember when he was doing the Ford ads and frequently declaring that he was going to buy the electric Focus as soon as it came out? I still get a laugh out of his greatest hits. As if his enormous ego would ever allow the purchase of a peasant vehicle.

        (Perhaps it was more a case of soliciting for a Ford freebie?)

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    1. Hope you can join on chat – check the “IRC Server” tab along the top left for IRC connection info. You can enter them in your favorite IRC client like mIRC, Hexchat, or I think IRCCloud.com will work too.

      Wwill have a look at the Web Chat interface but it’s the same IRC backend.

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    1. GeorgeGlobal:
      Mikaand Leo are now wearing Toupee’s.
      It even looks so obvious.
      How long till they pull the plug now that 24-7 live is done?

      oh boy, how far have they fallen. It really doesn’t cost all that much to stream to websites. You just need a crappy simple computer.

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  25. I (for obvious reasons) haven’t looked at the TWiT schedule in quite some time, but they have pared down so much from the height of their popularity and from when Lisa and Leo could suck the profits out of the business.

    There are no shows on Monday, only one friday, one saturday, and two on sundays. Leo only does shows on Tuesday, Wednsay, and Sunday now.

    There are 15 shows on the schedule and 5 of them are behind the pay wall.

    Remember when Leo said he wanted TWiT to become like a TV network with a full schedule of live shows every day of the week? How the mighty have fallen.

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    1. Surprised Ant Pruitt lasted as long as he did. A clear diversity hire, he had the personality of a stone.

      Shocked that Jason is going. After Tom and Sarah left he was one of the few lifelines to the old TWiT, the Brick House, the heyday. I thought for sure he’d go down with the ship.

      I’ve said this before, only a matter of time before Leo is doing the core 2-4 shows from his home studio, paying only an editor or 2 to edit and upload the content. TWiT is so niche now (tech news an analysis for geriatrics) that he can’t afford a studio and a crew to man it.

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      1. I was shocked that Jason was fired because he was the one that produced Leo and his shows. So he did most of the backround work for Leo’s shows. Even with most of the Shows Jason hosted getting cancelled, he still did a lot behind the scenes.

        I have this sneaking suspicion that Leo is a very difficult person to work for, so when you find someone who has been able to produce Leo for almost 10 years, letting that go and finding a way to replace it will be very hard.

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        1. I agree with you. He pushed away all of the people who could’ve succeeded him. Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz even. Club TWiT would be a lot easier of a sell with those people around.

          There’s something depressing about Leo begging (check the tail end of this weeks Windows Weekly (12/13/2023) or the last episode of Floss Weekly) for subscribers. I feel like they’re resigned to the fact that TWiT, even in this bastardized version in the strip mall studios, is over.

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  26. If their math is to be believed, that means that TWiT has roughly 750,000 people listening to their podcasts.

    Do we know what the numbers were 5-10 years ago? The closest I can find is total downloads from the 2015-2016 era.

    And look, jokes aside, the adpocolypse has been a real thing. TWiT is not the only company in the world that is greatly suffering from sharply declining ad revenue. This is a real thing. I listen to a lot of podcasts and most of them have either had to almost double their ad load in order to keep going, or are also asking for direct contributions via some method like patreon.

    I’m not here to defend Leo and the TWiT business overall, but we can say that TWiT is a shell of its former self, and largely an irrelevant player in the podcast realm while also saying that a good portion of the issues it faces are things out of its control.

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    1. What brought about the ad-pocalypse? I remember Leo getting nervous when podcast services started making numbers available to advertisers.

      There is no way that 750,000 unique visitors are consuming TWiT content on a weekly or monthly basis. The only show that seems to do numbers (on YouTube, at least) is This Week in Tech.

      For them to go from sailing along to begging for subscribers is hard to fathom. I haven’t been following much over the past 2-3 years. Him dumping the radio show, the layoffs, it’s going to end badly for all but a few producers who he can bring along when he eventually retreats to a home studio.

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      1. The adpocolypse was/is just the overall collapse of the ad market. Ad rates went down significantly, and a lot of companies that used to advertise a ton no longer do.

        Think about the podcasts you listen to now compared to 5 years ago. Most of the companies that used to advertise on podcasts no longer do. Look at what Spotify tried to do with podcasting, but there was no money in it and now Spotify has pretty much pulled out of trying to make original podcasts and is now just an aggregator.

        Every podcast I listen to that is open about it has talked about how 2023 has been a tough year for the ad supported model. TWiT is far from the only company/network to go through it.

        But TWiT’s problem is that it wasn’t well equipped to deal with it. TWiT was a declining property/business before the ad market collapsed, and the collapse has only hastened the demise. Even 3 years ago TWiT probably could have survived by just cutting down to the core shows but Leo has done his very best to burn the business down all by himself.

        I still watch/listen to Windows Weekly because I generally like Paul Thurrott and Leo is full of himself, doesn’t pay attention, and literally takes 20 minutes during the show the he hosts to get up and eat lunch. It is kind of hilarious.

        And the rest of the shows, at least the last time I was still listening, was just a giant circle jerk of people full of themselves. MacBreak Weekly was turned into an old boys club. TWiT and this week in Google turned into shows to push their politics. Leo thought he could just keep that going forever, and what is happening to TWiT is directly because of him.

        I agree with the person above who said that the endgame for TWiT is probably just Leo doing the 2-3 shows he wants to do from a home office. But that won’t be for any other reason than Leo wanting to hear himself talk.

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          1. Yeah, and don’t get me wrong, you can’t ignore it. Politics and tech policy are part of the tech landscape. I am not against discussing politics and tech in that vein. I can also still have a reasonable discussion with someone I disagree with. That’s not my issue.

            But when Leo started having that person who was running for Congress on TWiT on a regular basis was when I was out. The show literally turned into free campaigning for that person. I don’t even care if I agreed with the politics or not. Turning a show that was supposed to be about tech news into someone’s campaign for Congress was the end.

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    2. The thing is, Leo has been stuck in a podcasting 1.0 mindset. Even in his announcement of rge layoff he threw shade at YouTube Influencers.

      They had a chance to put their content out on YouTube but all Leo did was complain about people like MKBHD taking views from him. They could have pivoted slightly and become another YouTube outlet. But Leo is so short sighted. He actually tried to get MKBHD to come work for him. Good thing he’s not as dim as Leo, his YouTube has only grown while TWIT struggles to stay afloat.

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      1. Jos Dewey:
        The thing is, Leo has been stuck in a podcasting 1.0 mindset. Even in his announcement of rge layoff he threw shade at YouTube Influencers.

        They had a chance to put their content out on YouTube but all Leo did was complain about people like MKBHD taking views from him. They could have pivoted slightly and become another YouTube outlet. But Leo is so short sighted. He actually tried to get MKBHD to come work for him. Good thing he’s not as dim as Leo, his YouTube has only grown while TWIT struggles to stay afloat.

        Well, what actually happened was that the youtubers have all pivoted to also having podcasts along with their youtube channels and those are eating into ad revenue for the others.

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    1. oldgeorge:
      Lapork’s Irrational hatred of Elon M.
      He hates anyone that’s not a far-left Kook

      I mean, Leo is far from alone in hating Elon Musk, and, um, I think it isn’t a very controversial opinion to say that we can acknowledge that Elon Musk has done good things for the world while being an absolutely terrible human being.

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