This is the equivalent of a movie studio mucking with the production of a movie.

Shows with celebrity guests get better advertising packages (remember, earwolf is a front for an ad company). Earwolf shows require ads. Teachers lounge had too small and too niche of an audience to sell ads.

So we're getting an abomination of a show, that won't have any of the stuff we like because it has to be grounded enough to have guests who don't understand the format or improv well at all.

I'm sure it will be terrible and people will insist it's "even better than ever" while the listener engagement steadily drops and then we get a surprise clip show announcing it's death