Marc Maron, whose podcast show had become an increasingly popular listen with fans of the medium, has announced that he plans to put a close on the series. The comedian launched WTF with Marc Maron on September 1, 2009, which had joined the likes of podcast from fellow comedians Bill Burr and Joe Rogan. Maron’s show was also an institution in the community as he welcomed guests like Jeff Ross, Sir Paul McCartney, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, SNL creator Lorne Michaels and Barack Obama.
Deadline reports that Maron revealed the news on the newest episode released today, where he stated,
Sixteen years we’ve been doing this, and we’ve decided that we had a great run. Now, basically, it’s time, folks. It’s time. WTF is coming to an end. It’s our decision. We’ll have our final episode sometime in the fall.”
Maron will conclude his show after broadcasting around 2,000 episodes since its 2009 launch. The WTF Podcast would see success with 1.1B downloads, listens and impressions since its start. So far, the comedian has recorded 1,645 episodes and over 300 bonus episodes for premium subscribers. The show has two standout episodes, with one featuring Todd Glass coming out in 2012 and an episode with Robin Williams as a guest back in 2010, which had been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Recording Registry the next year.
The host explained his decision to end the podcast, saying, “It really comes down to the fact that we’ve put up a new show every Monday and Thursday for almost sixteen years and we’re tired. We’re burnt out. And we are utterly satisfied with the work we’ve done. We’ve done great work. This doesn’t mean I’m never going to do something like this again. Doesn’t mean I’ll never have talks like I do here, or some kind of podcast at some point in time. But for now, we’re just wrapping things up. It’s okay. It’s okay to end things. It’s okay to try to start some other chapter in your life.”
He continued, “It’s nice to be able to end things on our terms. We’ve always had that power to do that and that’s what we’re going to do. We started the show on our terms, we grew it on our terms, and we’ll end it on our terms. Look, we’ve had great partners who have helped us do the show over the years. Acast has been our partner for the past three years and we’ve been able to do things on our terms with them. We always had that and it’s always been the way we’ve done it and that’s been great. We’ve been very fortunate to be able to do things the way we want to do them and now this is part of it. Ending it the way we want it to end.”
