After eight years and over 400 episodes, Tech Talk Radio will be finishing in December.

From its fledgling beginnings in a neighbourhood house in 2004 hosted by Executive Producer Andrew McColm, the programme has grown to become a polished, professionally-produced two-hour talk show, syndicated and re-broadcast by dozens of stations around the country.

Inevitably, we hit a crossroads. Each of the panelists contributes between one and two days full-time each week, preparing and researching for Monday night. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s not sustainable with our day jobs, families and personal lives. We’ve been trying to get funding or sponsorship for a while, and we’ve looked at a number of different financial models. But as we’re seeing with the television industry at the moment, traditional media in Australia is dying a slow, horrible death. Just look here, here, here and here to see what it’s like IRL. We (all of us) need to seriously re-think how we produce, disseminate and consume content in the digital age.

Rather than downscale our production efforts, we decided it was better to end on a high. Monday 3rd December will be our last show, recorded live from the studios of 3WBC in Melbourne, and the final transmission will be on the CBAA Community Radio Network on Friday 7th December at 10:00 am.

You’re welcome to join us for the last show, BTW. You can register here, which is free, and helps us with catering. Of course if you can’t make it, you can still follow us on Twitter, Facebook, App.Net – you know the links – and stay subscribed to the Tech Talk email newsletter. We’ll still be churning-out the odd Tech Talk Special Carpark Edition from time-to-time.

Thankyou everyone for your support, good humour and patience over the years. Special thanks to Andrew, Graeme, Leena, Mark and JD. It’s been an incredible journey and I feel very privileged to have played a small part.