In the week since last I posted, I've been making big decisions about what and how I create the content I want to be making. These are decisions I've been mulling for a few months now for various reasons, but chief among them is that I want to chart my own course, sink or swim…you choose the metaphor.
Within the week, I am recording the final episodes of Screen Time and Giant Size that will be posted at 5by5. The shows are not ending, far from it.
"I Swear to God You're a Dead Man If This Means Critical Path Is Over"
There is no change to my co-hosting The Critical Path on 5by5 alongside Horace Dediu. We're recording a new episode this morning. He's about to do a pile of traveling (get your AirShow San Jose tickets for 30 January), so don't take any broadcast interruption to mean anything other than travel schedules complicating things vis-à-vis our show continuing for as long as Horace wants to do it.
Where Shows Are Going
Starting the first week of February, Screen Time and Giant Size will re-launch as a part of my new broadcast entity alongside the debut of Thank You For Calling, a show about customer service (pilot recorded and posted here). If you currently subscribe to the 5by5 feeds for Giant Size and Screen Time, you will have to subscribe to the new feeds on the new network.
"So, You and Dan Benjamin Are Mortal Enemies Now?"
Sorry to disappoint, but there is not some big drama behind the scenes that is worthy of being a subplot on Scandal. The infrastructure of 5by5 and what I wanted to do with my existing shows (and others that I have been developing) no longer match. This is a thing that happens. People's needs change and grow, respectively. At a certain point, Robin had to let Batman "do Batman" and go off to be Nightwing.
Apologies for the comic book reference.
I still consider Dan Benjamin not only a very dear friend, but the whole reason I'm doing podcasts in the first place, after "meaning to get serious about" doing a show for years. I owe Dan in ways I can't ever repay.
Listening to Dan's show Quit! is part of what made me want to jump into the insanely hard work that is not only producing content, but selling my own ads and sponsorships. Both parts of that equation have been elements of my career in the past, and it feels great to unify them on behalf of my own thing rather than those of others.
Due in large part to the people I've met, befriended, and been blessed to have as listeners and supporters while doing these shows on 5by5, I already have a few sponsorship deals closed or in the works.
Dan and I are totally cool. I'm still doing a show for him with Horace. Dan will guest on my new shows as time and topic permit. I'll do the same for him. I think I'm going on a BBQ run with him later this week. We had coffee this morning. We're cool.
How the New Network Will Work
All three shows will be broadcast live as they record. There will be an IRC-based chat room where you can suggest and up-vote titles. John Gholson has agreed to remain my better-than-I-deserve co-host on Giant Size. I've begun curating a sort of revolving co-host chair for what was called Screen Time. Giant Size and the show most recently known as Screen Time will remain panel-format focused, with short talent interviews plugged on the end. Longer versions of those interviews will be available too.
Much more information will be available in the coming days, but I wanted to cover some points I knew people would wonder about.
I'm focusing on these three shows, and should they do well, a few others that I've been developing.
Screen Time: Reiterating and Repurposing
I'm still using "Screen Time" as a show title, but I'm peeling it off of the signature panel-format show. I originally pitched it with a completely different name, a name that is bolted into the branding of the network. I'm not sharing that just yet, because there are a couple of things I need to lock up that I haven't secured just yet.
Screen Time has had a weird, complicated life that has taught me a great deal. It began as, predominantly, an interview show. Most of the episodes I recorded of it are done in that format. The new Screen Time feed will include the "Extended Cut" versions of interviews that will otherwise be cut down for the main "anchor" show.
The "new name show" will be more like Screen Time episodes 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 46, 49, 52, and 53 (and very rarely #50) than any others in that back catalogue. It will have guests very much like those found in those episodes, as well as others from both the tech and entertainment industries.
The first panel on the relaunched show will be return guests Horace Dediu and Guy English.
How You Can Help
First and foremost, if you love the shows I've done on 5by5, subscribe to the new feeds when they're posted, and please rate/review the shows like crazy once they're in iTunes. Listen to the shows, continue to give me great feedback, and enjoy them. Tell a few thousand friends.
On the financial side of things, if your company is interested in sponsoring the shows, please get in touch. By "your company", I also don't necessarily mean a corporation with an enormous overall ad budget. That includes everything from one-person app developers to independent comics creators.
If you host a podcast and would like to have me on as a guest in the coming days and weeks, let me know.
If you work or have worked in any sort of customer service job, have a horror story, or a company you can't get to solve your issue, send an email and I might have you on Thank You For Calling.
Thanks for reading this, listening to any of the shows I've been on, and supporting what I do in any way ever.
I'll have more next week. Wish me luck.
