$5,000 bucks is pretty good income for what is basically a 1-2 hour long "shoot-the-sh*t" phone call between Gruber and one of his buddies.

My guess is that this was the crux of the breakup with 5by5. I have no idea what sponsors pay to be on 5by5 but I would be surprised if Gruber's cut of that was anywhere near $5,000 an episode.

EDIT: Just for the sake of comparison here are the ad rates on daringfireball.net: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

5by5 sponsorship costs can be seen on this page: http://5by5.tv/advertise

There doesn't seem to be a pricelist for a particular show's sponsorship though.