A few hours ago, Dan Benjamin (founder of the 5BY5 Podcast Network and former co-host of “The Talk Show”) posted a 5BY5 special that ran for approximately four minutes in which he talks about the departure of “The Talk Show” from 5BY5. If you are a big fan of the show then I strongly recommend listening to it.

In it, Dan confirms much of what I had previously suspected in my previous post on the issue and the key point for me is that yes, indeed it was a very rapid series of events and Dan felt disappointed that there was no opportunity to “wrap things up” with a final episode.

I have read a great deal of negativity towards John Gruber regarding the move but anyone that has read Johns work and listened to every episode of “The Talk Show” would know that John chooses his path and forges ahead and he never apologises for his choices - irrespective of the fallout. The recent Readability saga is one example of this. Whether John will enjoy success with the show in a new format by himself or not is for the future to decide and having listened to the first episode now I must reiterate my concerns.

So far as Dan is concerned he hit the nail on the head about one thing in particular: when you listen to a show for as long as you do for many of us there is an emotional reaction when either the format changes or the show is cancelled. In this case it’s a strange combination of both.

Finally one more thing about Dan. He reacted much like the company he loves (Apple), by thinking about how to respond to an issue and then producing a short but direct response for his target audience. Bravo for showing how much he respects the listeners of his shows.

Onwards and upwards 5BY5: we’ll be listening.