You may have read elsewhere in the blogosphere that Leo Laporte now makes $1.5 million a year on his podcast. Jeff Jarvis, at his blog, talked a bit in the context of “Old Media is Dying,” drawing advice from Leo’s speech to the Online News Association (a video of which you can find at his blog).

The one nugget much of the blogosphere seems to have pulled from that speech is Leo’s disclosure of the yearly revenues and expenses of the show. From Podcasting News’ coverage:

He spoke before the Online News Association this week and discussed his experiences with making money with podcasting and new media. According to Laporte, he has revenue of $1.5 million/year, on expenses of $350,000/year, and expects the revenue to double annually. And, though, podcasting is what’s paying the bills, he’s thinking beyond it – looking at establishing TWiT as an an online tech destination site and getting on Roku and other Internet TV devices.

I chatted briefly with Leo this weekend to confirm the numbers and get a bit more detail from him. He confirmed that the numbers were mostly accurate

“It’s not something I wanted to boast about, and I’m kind of chagrined at all the attention it has received,” said Laporte. “I merely wanted to let the ONA members know it is possible to make it on your own if you act with passion, vision, and authenticity.”

The numbers he quoted were slightly off, he said, and clarified.

”As of August, we have revenues of $1.1 million on expenses of $500,000,” Laporte said. “We expect revenues to exceed $1.5 million for 2009. Our margin is right at 50% I believe – before taxes.”

Leo told me much of the same stuff I learned from Andrew Warner during his interview of Laporte last summer, that he’s chosen a slow and steady growth model, reinvesting revenue into to the network to grow.

A 24/7 News Network for Tech – an Awe Inspiring Idea

I’m not saying this simply because I’m a long time Laporte fan – I’m really on board with the idea of a CNN for tech.  Part of the reason I tuned in regularly to MSNBC during it’s early days was because I thought it was destined to look like my favorite show from the network, Laporte’s theSite.

At almost every organization I’ve been a part of for my career, I’ve tried to ramp up the online multi-media production aspects with the hopes of turning it into an online video news network. At times, particularly when I started beating the drum six or seven years ago, I was perceived as delusionally bleeding edge. In more recent positions, I was considered to simply be pursuing a business model for online that wasn’t sustainable.

Of course, Leo is proving that these judgments by my former bosses are incorrect, which pleases me to no end (one of my very favorite phrases to utter has always been “see I told you so.”).

Leo is announcing next week that the TWiT network will be available on the Roku (now’s probably a good time to go order yours – they’ll be sold out once the TWiT Army goes to buy them) both in live and time-delayed status. 

As I’ve mentioned dozens of times in the past, online video needs to move into the veg-factor territory, which means it needs to be easy to consume as well as ambient. The Roku accomplishes this seamlessly, particularly in the context of airing a network like TWiT.

It’s cheap, offers live and on demand (so it delivers the veg-factor), and is accessible to mid-level producers like you (not just mainstream outlets, and of course not allowing in everyone with 12 video views on YouTube).

In other words, it’s an extremely wise move for the TWiT network, and a move that other online video networks should look to emulate.