This is sad news. Dan was the one who balanced Gruber's cockiness. Oh well, though, 5by5 will be fine with its other good shows. Oh John Siracusa, please don't leave!
Has there been some sort of falling out between Arment, Siracusa and Gruber - they all left 5by5 within a short time of the Gruber move, and in my opinion their shows are now worse.
To me 50% of this show was Dan Benjamin. Without him it will not be the same show, even if Gruber is the main draw card. Sad to see him leave, but I'm more interested in what is ahead for Dan. He has a great network.
I give Dan Benjamin huge respect for doing this, he certainly didn't have any obligation to do so. Gruber and Mike Monteiro on the other hand have basically given the audience a massive fuck you. I am not really surprised by that but it is a disappointment and has put me off checking out the new Talk Show going forward, or indeed any Mule Radio podcasts. Dan will be fine anyway, 5by5 has some of the best shows on the internet.
I'd be really really sad if hypercritical gets cancelled. I hope John Siracusa never leaves 5by5 - Dan Benjamin doesn't contribute that much to the show, but is still a great host.
I imagine that this is money related. The Talk Show was one of the original shows. 5by5 has grown a lot since then. Dan has put ton of work in to his company. And it shows. Perhaps as a business 5by5 is doing much better now then it was when it started out. Perhaps gruber was still operating under the original agreement him and dan had when they first teamed up. Maybe gruber is no longer satisfied with their agreement seeing how well the talk show franchisee is doing.
This seemed more apparent when Dan teased him a bit for not wearing the 5by5 shirt. Seemed like a sore point.
Dan left me with a small impression that gruber what "phoning it in" by commenting on the fact that gruber didn't dress up for the show. Dan, it's a radio show. Good luck guys.
No doubt Dan is pissed, but holding back his anger because that's his nature.
The Talk Show was started by John and Dan in 2007. The website (thetalkshow.net) is registered to Dan and was most likely coded by him as well. Dan has just as much invested into The Talk Show as Gruber. It would've been much classier to leave 5by5 and start an entire new show.
for anyone like me who had no idea what 5by5 was, it seems like it's a talk show that Gruber was part of, then he left to do another, or something like that. meh
was unable to find reference to said shenanigans though, which was disappointing
Seriously though, it's John's show and he's free to take it to another network. I just _really_ hope that this transition was done in a respectful manner and that there isn't bad blood between 5by5 and Mule.
A little background: Let's Make Mistakes, Mule Radio's main show, got started with 5by5's help. Let's Make Mistakes was a 5by5 network show for it's first year of existence. It garnered all of the listenership and cross promotion that comes with being part of 5by5. After a year of getting traction, Mule split the show off into its own podcasting network, essentially becoming a competitor to 5by5. If Mule now aggressively poached The Talk Show from 5by5 then it was certainly a dick move.
Of course, we don't have all the details and this is just speculation. So again, I hope this was done in a way that respected Dan and 5by5.
I understand his decision though, show was becoming a bit redundant, he did point out a lot of good stuff throughout the way. Less shows for me to watch on 5by5 now, this one and Grubber where the most interesting ones IMO.
Here's the thing. I loved the Talk Show for the longest time, but even recently noticed that things were starting to... go downhill. Never would have guessed it was between the hosts but the magic wasn't there anymore. It seemed more like a chore. I missed the Bond stuff a lot, and was looking forward to the potential next movie club but it never happened. And then things just seemed to become more and more pauses and more and more wasted hours.
Another thing: Gruber's a terrible host. Don't get me wrong, I think the man is great, his blog fantastic, a magnificent writer, and a really smart guy. But his constant pauses, breaks, and seeming unwillingness to be on a show doesn't make for good listening. Which is why Dan was KEY to the show. Having him to help guide the conversation, reel Gruber back in, and most importantly, feed him the softballs so Gruber could knock them out of the park was KEY to the success of the show.
I just don't understand how Gruber can expect to do the show without him. Now maybe if part of this was because of bad blood, and Gruber is joined by his friends it won't matter, he will WANT to talk to them and it wont be an issue. But I don't know.
All in all, I'm not sure I'm going to keep listening. Gruber & Friends only interests me if the friends are the aforementioned Lonely Sandwich, or Merlin, or other guys who's shows and insight I've come to know and love.
As for the reasoning? Your guess is as good as mine, and I think people are right in assuming it's bad blood otherwise an official statement should have come from someone. To be fair, as respect to the fans and people who listen one, if not both should have said something (Leo Laporte is very open when his shows/hosts move on) because it's the professional thing to do. If the split is personal not professional the silence makes more sense. That said, these guys make themselves out to be professional so even if it was personal they should still have come out an said something (again, see Laporte).
One thing is for certain. Listen to Dan's back and forth with hosts like Siracusa, Dalrymple, and of course Merlin Mann. Merlin signs off with an "I Love You" and you can tell there's a genuine friendship amongst that professional relationship. Gruber and Dan never had that, so maybe its for the best they go their separate ways.
But for both to say nothing to anyone is a big Screw You to the fans (note I only used screw to be polite, I would have opted for the harsher option), and doesn't leave me wanting to hear Talk Show 3.0.
I'll still read Daring Fireball religiously though.
I think for the two recent guys that left, they were just burned out on having to carry all the content of a weekly show alone. Now their new podcast is more of a conversation and they can just BS without much prep.
For Gruber, I assume it was just money. Someone else offered him more or an ownership stake that he wasn't going to get from 5x5.
It's a shame, but they'd had a long run of shows, Gruber clearly wanted to do something else which is fine. Could he have handled it better? Sure, of course.
Plus they're still friends on Twitter, and we all know that it's only serious if you unfollow.
I'm pretty disappointed with this move. I was getting a little tired of the Talk Show on 5By5 but it was still enjoyable because Dan brought humor and structure to the show.
I remember when Let's Make Mistakes split off and formed a new podcast network it felt odd to me at the time, like they used 5By5 to get some initial audience and then took them for themselves. For some reason it fit with the impression I get that Mike Monteiro is an asshole.
With this move I am done with the Talk Show. I just dont care any more.
Probably coincidental, but TTH was a tent pole show, and Big Week appears to be one as well.
I also think that bringing in Dalrymple might have made 5by5 feel too crowded. To my knowledge, of the 5 or so major podcasts on 5by5, Talk Show was the only one hosted by a blogger. (Though I'm hesitant to call John a blogger because he rarely writes original content. 95% of DF is links or quotes with one sentence of analysis, but that's neither here nor there) Dalrymple was only the second blogger, and Gruber must have felt that Jim was stealing his thunder.
Frankly, I think it's for the best. The Talk Show has been going down hill, and can't hold a candle to B&A or Hypercritical.
I agree, and if it's true that John took the show's name without even giving Dan advance notice let alone asking permission, then I'm disappointed. I'm curious in general about mule's split from Dan. I loved the original "fuck you, pay me" but never got into "let's make mistakes" and was surprised that they split off 5by5 (and now appear to be poaching) but I'd like to hear the other side...
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