Wil Harris, a frequent TWiT, says that Leo is not giving up on TWiT. Rather, he’s simply expressing the thought that TWiT isn’t TWiT without at least a few of the originals like Dvorak or Patrick Norton. Lately it’s been hard to even get more than a couple people on at once, apparently.

Regardless, given the rumors that have been circulating that Leo Laporte would be canning TWiT for good, it made me reflect on whether I would be missing anything terribly important if TWiT went away -I had to pause for a moment when the answer I came back with was, “probably not.” TWiT is the most popular podcast (or netcast, according to Leo) on the Internet, so I’m probably in the minority here. Still, I see the possibility of a canceled TWiT more as an issue for other pod/netcasters more so than the listeners.

Leo Laporte, by virtue of his long experience in radio and television entertainment, brought savvy and production value to the medium, a medium that had previously been pretty weak in either. Leo also showed how listenership could be leveraged into a business model (surprisingly, it sounds a lot like radio).

Also, and probably most profoundly in the long term, Leo created a new “channel” of content with his TWiT network (including Inside the Net, FLOSS Weekly and others that I’ve enjoyed). So Leo’s been on the bleeding edge for the medium. But I think he’s also bringing to the medium expectations and requirements from sponsors.

Leo is pushing the medium in a pretty traditional direction, with traditional advertising and traditional and formulaic content creation. Granted, he’s in a league for this type of thing that I am not, and probably never will be, but pod/netcasting needs to have more than one or two spokespersons. Maybe TWiT going the way of the dodo wouldn’t be the worst thing for us - maybe it would lead to a little more innovation rather than transference of traditional forms to the new conduit.