Tech News Today - Tech News

Tech News Today, or TNT for short, is a podcast with discussions of new stories in conversation with journalists. The netcast is part of the TWiT Network. The show premiered on June 1, 2010. It was originally hosted by Tom Merritt for the first 912 episodes of the show. Becky Worley co-hosted the show from 2010 to 2012. At the end of 2015, Jason Howell and Megan Morrone took over the co-hosting duties for the show.

History

Tech News Today was started by Merritt, Becky Worley, Erik Lanigan, and Laporte (although Laporte was only there for the first episode). Sarah Lane joined the show as co-host on Mondays and Fridays and started working every day on the show after Worley left the show. Lane's last Tech News Today show was episode 941 and she went on to host Tech News 2Night, TWiT's evening news show every weeknight. Iyaz Akhtar also joined the show as a guest in episode 4 and joined as a co-host on episode 209. Akhtar's last Tech News Today show was episode 911 and he went on to become Senior Editor at CNET. Jason Howell joined Tech News Today at episode 83. Howell's last Tech News Today was episode 1122. He went on to replace Chad Johnson, becoming " Laporte's producer," producing This Week in Tech, MacBreak Weekly, This Week in Google, and Triangulation netcasts. The show is now hosted by Mike Elgan who joined Tech News Today at episode 913, and rotating co-anchors. Episode 1 of TNT appeared on June 1, 2010. Tech News Today is shown through a live video feed along with many of the rest of the TWiT network shows.

Merritt moved to Los Angeles, California, to accommodate his wife Eileen Rivera's new job at YouTube. Tech News Today continued on with Merritt being a Skype host, and he did his first show as a host via Skype in Episode 671 from his home studio in Los Angeles.

On December 5, 2013, host Leo Laporte announced in a blog post on the TWiT website, that Merritt would not be returning to the show due to Laporte wanting an "in studio host/news director." Later, Jordan Settlemyre leaked that Leo claims that Tom Merritt wanted a $100K raise that TWiT couldn't afford, saying "He sucked twit dry for his own personal gain."

On December 8, 2015, TWiT announced that Elgan would move on, leaving TWiT.tv without a news director. TWiT went on to also drop the companion show Tech News 2Night. Tech News 2Night host Megan Morrone and producer Jason Howell took over Tech News Today on a daily basis at 4PM each weekday, starting on January 4, 2016.

Original format

The show featured three segments during the Merritt era of Tech News Today: The News Fuse where each host talked about the top stories of that day for around 5 minutes (this was followed by an ad read), Merritt would then welcome the guest(s) on that show to discuss the news of the day and talk about/analyze it and the Randomizer were the audience decided based on a Strawpoll what the final unusual tech news story was going to be. Elgan had a similar structure when he hosted Top News replacing The News Fuse, The Conversation, and In Other News replacing the Randomizer. This format was replaced, with the shows merged into one segment.

Illustrations

Len Peralta, a graphic artist, illustrator, and cartoonist, joined Tech News Today at Episode 756 on Fridays to illustrate the show. The drawings would then go up to Peralta's web site for sale. As of the beginning of Elgan's tenure, this has stopped.

Former hosts

• Tom Merritt (until December 30, 2013...episode 912)
• Becky Worley (until March 29, 2011...episode 209)
• Erik Lanigan as Producer (until September 26, 2010...episode 82)
• Sarah Lane (until February 10, 2014...episode 941)
• Darren Kitchen (Mondays and Fridays until December 30, 2013...episode 912)
• Iyaz Akhtar (until December 18, 2013...episode 905) (started episode 209...March 29, 2011)
• Len Peralta (Fridays until December 20, 2013...episode 907) (started episode 756...May 17, 2013)
• Mike Elgan (until December 7, 2015...episode 1403) (started episode 913...December 31, 2013)

Awards

Tech News Today was the recipient of the 2012 International Academy of Web Television award for Best News Web Series. Tech News Today was also named Best of 2010 in Podcasts by iTunes Rewind.