Marc Maron pulls back the WTF? Podcast curtain for Bob Lefsetz

Alright, some context for you here. There’s an email list, the Lefsetz Letter and it’s written by one Bob Lefsetz. Bob is a former industry professional that now runs his letter. The topics range from diminishing roles in the music biz, new technology, reactions to marketing plans, songs, artists pretty much anything that interests him in the music biz. He’s gotten into arguments with artists, re-posted email chains, as some see him more a menace than an analyst. Regardless of where you fall on the argument, it starts a dialogue and is entertaining.

A recent Lefzetz letter took on the topic of Marc Maron’s now infamous Gallagher episode of WTF?. It caused some readers to be upset because the WTF? issue was locked in the archives and is now a pay episode which spawned an email exchange between the two in which Lefsetz jumped to conclusions about Maron’s business practices, citing just because he wasn’t giving away all of his content for free, allowing all of Bob’s fans to read it, he wasn’t doing it right.

One more thing, rereading this – You’re only doing yourself a disservice. My audience now can’t hear your work, which is only hurting you. So everybody I turned on to you today will shrug their shoulders and think you’re just another mercenary man who doesn’t get it. They won’t be able to listen. So, you can preach to the converted. I tried to broaden your audience. Which now backfired, makes me look bad, and it makes me wary of linking to you in the future. Just being honest here.

I’ve got tons to write about. You’re ensuring that I don’t write about you. It’s like only being able to write about Robert Plant’s album with Alison Krauss and being unable to write about Zeppelin because people can’t hear it.

Maron fired back with peek into how the business model of his podcast works. Equally fascinating, and mentioning that though it’s not a model Lefsetz agrees with, he’s doing okay and relies on fans wanting to support something they like.

The pay per episode on iTunes has done well for us. Some episodes are insanely popular and have sold very well and continue to sell well. Again, not music business money but an okay living money when combined with the rest of it.

Merch has become a big part of the business online and on the road. I have built a bigger audience so the road is getting good. It is gratifying especially after 25 years of pounding my head against the wall. All combined we do all right. I split my bread with my producer who works out of NYC. We have a small operation.

So, in actuality, as I said, ALL episodes are free for about six months. I have found that people want to support the show. After time they realized it was a lot of work and they enjoyed it twice a week and actually felt a little guilty that it was free. Most of my fans are adults or very sensitive, bright kids.

The entire rundown is an interesting exchange. In general Lefsetz seems offensive, almost wanting to get Maron to admit his model is flawed. The tone changes once he gets the full breakdown of exactly how Maron is operating WTF?. Just goes to show, comedy podcasting is very much in it’s infancy and before we try to apply older models to newer systems we might find the holes don’t line up as well as we’d like them to.

Read it and decide for yourself.