The New Screen Savers, Know How, and This Week in Law end of life

I was so excited when we launched “The New Screen Savers” three-and-a-half years ago. Since then it's been one of my favorite shows in our line-up and a great way for us to showcase products and ideas that don’t fit any of our other shows. But doing justice to that mission makes it the most complicated and expensive show on TWiT. We’ve been trying to do a network television show on a podcaster’s budget.

As you know, TWiT is a bootstrapped operation. We have never taken investments; we can only spend as much as we make. And if a show, however much we love it, can’t pay for itself, we just can’t afford to do it. Unfortunately, “The New Screen Savers” just hasn’t developed a big enough audience to pay for itself. So, as much as it breaks my heart to do this, we’re going to end its run December 29, 2018.

Part of what made “The New Screen Savers” special is the many former TechTVers joined me as co-hosts including Patrick Norton, Kevin Rose, Megan Morrone, Martin Sargent, Robert Heron, Roger Chang, Sarah Lane, and of course, Kate Botello. TWiT regulars like Jason Howell, Jason Snell, Jason Calacanis, Ron Richards, Iain Thomson, Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ, and others have stepped in as co-hosts as well. I thank them all from the bottom of my heart.

We thought it fitting that Patrick and I host the last live episode together on December 22. The Best of 2018 show will post on December 29, 2018. The entire back-catalog of episodes are available to watch anytime at twit.tv/nss.

But that’s not all...

Iyaz Akhtar started “Know How…” in 2012 to highlight a variety of how-tos and DIYs. Since then, hosts Iyaz, Leo, Fr. Robert Ballecer, Bryan Burnett, Megan Morrone and Florence Ion, and Jason Howell and Sam Machkovech have shown you everything from building computers, drones, soldering, Raspberry Pi projects, LEDs, smart devices, and gaming. We’re also ending its run this month but we’ll move some of the content into a new show coming in early 2019. The last episode published on December 20, 2018. You can see all "Know Now…" shows anytime at twit.tv/kh.

After talking with Denise Howell, we all agreed that "This Week in Law" will also end in early 2019. Denise and her panel of legal minds covered the wide spectrum of topics related to law and tech, including Intellectual Property, privacy, copyright, regulation, and the ever-expanding segment of animal selfies. The last episode will be January 11, 2019, at 3:00 pm PST. As sad as this news is, I’m thrilled to say Denise’s brilliant legal mind and entertaining style will take on a larger role on the network going forward with regular appearances on "This Week in Tech" and "Triangulation". All of the TWiL shows will remain available at twit.tv/twil.

I know you share my sadness at losing these three shows. We don’t cancel shows lightly, but we also understand it’s part of the process in keeping TWiT fresh and vital. And every ending brings a new beginning. We’re working on a new show we’ll unveil early next year.

We all work every day to fulfill our mission to bring you the best tech programming on the Internet. As always, I thank you for your continued support. TWiT wouldn’t exist without you.

Leo and Lisa