Good move. As a listener, I appreciate the note and I think this will go a long way towards easing people into the new format. Also, the second episode was much improved, IMHO.
I stopped listening to the 5by5 version a long time ago. I listened to the second Mule episode just to hear the explanation, and wow, was it all over the place.
They introduced the 'controversy' right at the beginning of the show and then you had to sit through 30 minutes of meandering back and forth before Gruber finally decided to get to the point and say it was a business disagreement.
Addendum: Gruber did a sponsor read, and well, I don't know that I'd pay him $2500 to do a monotonous, unenthusiastic promotion of my product.
The tone of the podcast for the sponsor message went from conversational to "I gotta read this so I guess I will". At least he admitted that Dan does better reads of sponsor messages.
It's good to see Gruber trying to be a bit more classy in his handling of the talk show situation. Now if only we knew what "business reasons" him and Dan disagreed on. I'm assuming Gruber wanted a larger cut of sponsor money or something, but who knows...
I have a feeling the "business reasons" had to do with non-sponsorship revenue shares. In particular, rev share from t-shirts may have been the last straw for Gruber, especially based on the t-shirt talk on the last 5by5 episode and Dan's blog post regarding t-shirts (http://blog.5by5.tv/2012/5/22/t-shirt-status-update) where he explicitly mentions that hosts will get 50% of the profits from their show's shirts.
In the end, I don't think the "business reasons" really matter. Gruber was well within his rights to end the podcasting relationship if he was unhappy. It just would have been polite to the audience to give them a head's up.
Rampant speculation: there could also be disagreement over how revenue from “run of network” sponsorships, where 5by5 charges a fixed price for sponsorship of their most popular shows, is divided between the shows.
I could imagine not being satisfied with whatever method 5by5 used to do measure and allocate this revenue share. For example, one show might have x% of listeners, and everyone might even agree on how to measure that (feed subscribers, downloads, live listeners, whatever), but the host of one show might feel those listeners are worth more to sponsors than other shows.
After a minute of thought, I realized that maybe he's being classy now because he realizes that the podcast's audience is what allows him to command $5000/episode in sponsorships.
When the breakup first happened, he might have taken the listeners for granted, which explains why instead of posting today's post a week or so ago, he chose to post some oblique passive aggressive entries instead.
Once people started publicly announcing their "unsubscribes" in droves and leaving negative comments on iTunes, Gruber himself decided to sing a different tune.
I don't know for his talk show or the page views of his website but I can tell you (even if it doesn't necessarily mean anything) his number of followers on Twitter increased of about 1000+ since the original break-up announce.
My guess is that this was the crux of the breakup with 5by5. I have no idea what sponsors pay to be on 5by5 but I would be surprised if Gruber's cut of that was anywhere near $5,000 an episode.
I'm surprised he doesn't mention why they split as he did in the podcast anyway. Might have cleared it up if he'd just said 'I thought I should get more take, I was lead host, it's a job', we can all relate. Skipping round the topic makes it seem like he doesn't want to come out and say it.
Yeah but if he'd said 'we disagreed over x but we're still going to be friends' then we'd all go 'oh well he can't have been that out of line'. Sometimes the uncomfortable discussion is worth having.
I'm curious to know what percentage of the audience listened to the show because of Dan.
I listened to the original Talk Show (pre 5x5) and I could not stand Gruber's constant "y'knows" and stopped after 2 episodes.
After 5by5 started and I was listening to his other podcasts, I gave the Talk Show a second chance because I like Dan, and thankfully Gruber worked on his verbal tics. In the end, however, the Gruber part of the show wasn't interesting enough to me, and I stopped listening.
I've tried all the shows on 5by5 and with few exceptions if Dan doesn't cohost I'm not as interested. He dumbs himself down at times and acts as a foil, it works and extracts more from the cohost. From his writing he is a really smart guy but he plays the role that he has too.
I continue to be surprised at the slack people are cutting Gruber here. He doesn't owe anyone anything, and we'll likely never know what truly happened (or didn't happen) between him and Dan, but he should still be accountable to his audience.
He waited a week to say anything about it, and in the end didn't really say much of anything at all. Maybe he was 100% justified in what he did—we'll never know, and it doesn't really matter.
What jumps out to me through all this is that if the roles had been reversed, Gruber would have very quickly and publicly called Dan a 'dicknose'.
His lack of regard for listeners, the people who pay his mortgage, is very, very surprising and ultimately disappointing.
I've had a frantic last week, but am I confused? Didn't Gruber spit it out and say it was about the income on his last The Talk Show podcast (#2, I think?)
As an aside, I love Dan and the work he does a whole heck of a lot, but I listened to the new The Talk Show episodes, expecting them to be rambling trainwrecks, but I'm starting to think these new shows are better. Gruber seems much more engaged. It's a little more entertaining. It really illustrated how wrong I was that Dan and John had this great "odd couple" chemistry.
The only issue I have (and had on the 5by5 version) is that the time vs. information value ratio is (for me) really weak. I could spend that hour on something else that has more value to me.
I wish I didn't give a shit about this whole situation. It really doesn't affect me in anyway. However, when I do think about it, this is what comes to mind:
1. John and Dan started the podcast together
2. John came up with the name
3. Something happend between the two of them
4. John leaves, taking the show with him.
From a business perspective, I'm shocked at both John and Dan. John took the whole brand and said it was his and started monitizing it right away, presumably cutting Dan out of any revenue. Dan, is just letting that slide. Doesn't he have a right to half?
Johnny Ive can't simply walk away and use the iPhone design because he came up with the idea.
...anyway, like I said, I really shouldn't give a shit about this whole situations. I just think it stinks.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 65.2 ms ] threadThey introduced the 'controversy' right at the beginning of the show and then you had to sit through 30 minutes of meandering back and forth before Gruber finally decided to get to the point and say it was a business disagreement.
The tone of the podcast for the sponsor message went from conversational to "I gotta read this so I guess I will". At least he admitted that Dan does better reads of sponsor messages.
I could imagine not being satisfied with whatever method 5by5 used to do measure and allocate this revenue share. For example, one show might have x% of listeners, and everyone might even agree on how to measure that (feed subscribers, downloads, live listeners, whatever), but the host of one show might feel those listeners are worth more to sponsors than other shows.
When the breakup first happened, he might have taken the listeners for granted, which explains why instead of posting today's post a week or so ago, he chose to post some oblique passive aggressive entries instead.
Once people started publicly announcing their "unsubscribes" in droves and leaving negative comments on iTunes, Gruber himself decided to sing a different tune.
Wonder how that compares to other podcasts. Strange the network is not selling the spots.
EDIT: Just for the sake of comparison here are the ad rates on daringfireball.net: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/
There doesn't seem to be a pricelist for a particular show's sponsorship though.
I listened to the original Talk Show (pre 5x5) and I could not stand Gruber's constant "y'knows" and stopped after 2 episodes.
After 5by5 started and I was listening to his other podcasts, I gave the Talk Show a second chance because I like Dan, and thankfully Gruber worked on his verbal tics. In the end, however, the Gruber part of the show wasn't interesting enough to me, and I stopped listening.
He waited a week to say anything about it, and in the end didn't really say much of anything at all. Maybe he was 100% justified in what he did—we'll never know, and it doesn't really matter.
What jumps out to me through all this is that if the roles had been reversed, Gruber would have very quickly and publicly called Dan a 'dicknose'.
His lack of regard for listeners, the people who pay his mortgage, is very, very surprising and ultimately disappointing.
He probably would have made Dan the "jackass of the week".
As an aside, I love Dan and the work he does a whole heck of a lot, but I listened to the new The Talk Show episodes, expecting them to be rambling trainwrecks, but I'm starting to think these new shows are better. Gruber seems much more engaged. It's a little more entertaining. It really illustrated how wrong I was that Dan and John had this great "odd couple" chemistry.
The only issue I have (and had on the 5by5 version) is that the time vs. information value ratio is (for me) really weak. I could spend that hour on something else that has more value to me.
1. John and Dan started the podcast together
2. John came up with the name
3. Something happend between the two of them
4. John leaves, taking the show with him.
From a business perspective, I'm shocked at both John and Dan. John took the whole brand and said it was his and started monitizing it right away, presumably cutting Dan out of any revenue. Dan, is just letting that slide. Doesn't he have a right to half?
Johnny Ive can't simply walk away and use the iPhone design because he came up with the idea.
...anyway, like I said, I really shouldn't give a shit about this whole situations. I just think it stinks.