Just noticed it is now cancelled and some of the hosts are creating a new show under the DTNS banner. I am out of the loop. Appreciate if someone can explain. Thanks.
TWiT is definitely in trouble. The last time I listened to them, one of their advertisements was for… doing advertisements on TWiT. They were also pushing their subscription every chance they got.
Their whole network comes off as a bunch of boomers complaining about technology. I don’t think they’ll be around much longer.
If I were an advertiser I wouldn’t want to associate with Leo Laporte, to be frank. I think he has been lucky to get advertisers largely because of his radio days; if he hadn’t had those ties to start with, I don’t think he’d have gotten very far.
He cheated on his wife with his producer, Lisa, who I think he later went on to marry after leaving his wife.
He showed sexually explicit texts between Lisa and himself on air, not just once, but twice. If that wasn’t enough, he also showed his penis on air in much the same way.
He’s made racist comments on air, including saying “they all look alike” in reference to black people, and saying blacks and hispanics are responsible for all crime.
He’s abusive to his employees, such as when he said “Fuck you you’re dead to me” and threatened to punch Brian Brushwood in the face, after (show hosts) Brian and Justin Robert Young were banned from TWiT with no public reason provided. They didn’t badmouth Leo or TWiT, not that that would excuse that behavior anyway. He seemingly can’t control his anger, even on air, and verbally attacks his engineers for any mistake they make. He also is no stranger to attacking his guests/co-hosts on air.
Sarah Lane, co-host of one of (if not the) biggest shows on the network at the time, spoke about workplace sexual harassment (it might be worse than it looks). His interview with Cali Lewis is rather uncomfortable to watch; there is a tasteful and appropriate way to have the conversation, and then there’s the creepiness with which he approached it. Not to mention how inappropriate it was in the context to really have the conversation at all.
Not that I’m generally a fan of this sort of website, but there’s a website devoted to documented Leo’s disgusting actions. If you can get past the editorializing, it is still useful to document things that actually happened. You can ignore the editorialising entirely and just watch the video clips they uploaded if that suits you.
Overall, my opinion of the man is:
- He has absolutely no sense of appropriate behavior in a given context. Some actions are acceptable (calling out your engineers for repeat mistakes) but not in all contexts (on air); likewise for attacking guests.
- He is a sexual pervert who can’t put in the required effort to keep his professional and sex life adequately separate.
- As an employer, he doesn’t treat his employees with respect. That’s not to mention workplace sexual harassment.
- He only got as far as he did because he had a massive advantage of having his previous TV shows and radio shows–this is how he got most of his early advertisers (most of whom stuck with the network).
