Marc Maron has announced that he and producer Brendan McDonald have decided to end “WTF With Marc Maron,” the groundbreaking podcast that helped define the medium and launched in 2009.
Maron broke the news during the podcast’s latest episode to guest John Mulaney, who was the first person to hear about the decision. “‘WTF’ is coming to an end, and it’s our decision,” Maron said. “We’ll have our final episode sometime in the fall.”
The podcast, which will turn 16 years old on Sept. 1, has become one of the most influential shows in podcasting history, with more than 1,600 episodes featuring interviews with everyone from Barack Obama to Keith Richards to Carol Burnett. Notably, Maron’s episode with Robin Williams became the first one-on-one podcast episode to enter America’s National Recording Registry.
“It was not some kind of difficult decision, necessarily,” Maron explained. “Neither me nor Brendan, who are the only people in charge of this operation on every level… we both realized together that we were done.”
The show began in Maron’s garage during the early days of podcasting, when few understood the medium’s potential. “This started, you know, the old garage… just no one knew what a podcast was,” Maron said. “I was coming out of a horrendous divorce. I was wanting to figure out how to continue living my life.”
Maron and McDonald maintained their creative independence throughout the podcast’s run, with Maron recording in his garage studio and McDonald producing from Brooklyn. The two-man operation has consistently released episodes every Monday and Thursday for nearly 16 years.
“We’re tired, we’re burnt out, and we are utterly satisfied with the work we’ve done,” Maron said. “We’ve done great work.”
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Maron emphasized that the decision to end came from both parties simultaneously. “We always said, ‘Well, how do we know when we’re done?’ And I always said, ‘Well, whenever Brendan says so,’ and he always said… ‘if Mark, you know, is finished and we’re finished.’ And thankfully, we both realized together that we were done.”
He stressed that ending the podcast doesn’t necessarily mean retirement from similar work. “This doesn’t mean I’m never going to do something like this again. Doesn’t mean I’ll never, you know, 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.”
The podcast will continue releasing new episodes through the fall, with Maron promising to feature “as many people on as possible” during the final months, including guests who may want to appear “now that you know this is the sort of like home stretch.”
“It’s okay for things to end,” Maron reflected. “We started the show on our terms, we grew it on our terms, and we’ll end it on our terms.”
The news was first reported in Deadline.
From Variety US