When Marc Maron recorded his third comedy album, in the summer of 2008, he was a respected standup performer whose commercial prospects were so grim that he was bracing himself for the sputtering end of a twenty-five-year career. In his bleakest moments, he mulled suicide.

In September, 2009, Maron débuted a twice-weekly podcast, “WTF with Marc Maron,” which he clandestinely produced after-hours from the offices of Air America, where he had been fired three times, using an unreturned set of keys. The show was a recording of Maron’s lengthy discussions with fellow comedians about show business, comedy, and existential yearning. Several months later, a powerful and revealing interview with Robin Williams garnered “WTF” some broad recognition, and soon afterward other Hollywood juggernauts, like Judd Apatow and Ben Stiller, were sitting down with Maron to divulge intimate details about their lives and careers. Today, his podcast is a frequent top-ten entry on iTunes, with close to three million downloads every month. He is also the star and creator of the IFC television series “Maron,” which is loosely based on his life and anchored around a fictionalized version of the podcast that he now produces out of his garage in Highland Park.

Maron’s startling success is an extreme example of personal and professional salvation before the altar of the podcast. But it also illustrates how this relatively new digital media—which allows audiences to stream and download anything from video clips to audio interviews onto their computers and mobile devices—is gradually transforming the culture and economics of comedy. Comedy series crowd the list of iTunes’s top podcasts at any given time, and everyone from an eighteen-year-old aspiring comic producing shows out of his college dorm room to the most élite standups in New York and Los Angeles are exploring their potential.

For much of the short history of modern comedy, there have been few viable paths for comedians to parlay their acts into broader success. A killer appearance on “The Tonight Show” that left Johnny Carson heaving with laughter could launch a career, as it did for Steve Martin in the mid-nineteen-seventies. And for decades, successful stints on “Saturday Night Live” have meant the difference between obscurity and stardom for a number of improvisers, sketch writers, and standups. But a bad showcase in front of industry executives could set back years of diligent striving—a young Jim Carrey was once axed from appearing on “The Tonight Show” after such a performance—and a single mediocre audition for “S.N.L.” could freeze a career on the verge of stardom.

Podcasting, like other means of digital distribution, has flattened the old order, circumventing the traditional gatekeepers of the entertainment industry. Comics are no longer quite as vulnerable to the whims of fickle bookers, the politics of clubs and theatres, or the snap judgments of Lorne Michaels and his army of scouts. From the comfort of their own homes, hosts can hone their comedic voices, cultivate far-flung and devoted audiences, and carve out, for future employers, a proven track record of competency and popularity as performers.

When Nikki Glaser and Sara Schaefer began their podcast “You Had To Be There” in early 2011, recording in Schaefer’s Brooklyn living room with little more than a laptop, audio mixers, and some microphones, the two women had been working comics for close to a decade. At the time, Schaefer was experiencing some misgivings about her attempts to manipulate her act into something more palatable for television. Although she had been a fixture in the New York comedy scene for several years—notably, as the head blogger at “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”—she found herself unable to land a breakthrough spot on TV or at festivals. She recalled, “I was struggling with that process—turning my longer bits into shorter, punchier ones for that elusive TV set.”

The weekly rhythm of “You Had To Be There” provided Schaefer with a regular platform to refine her skills. “Our podcast allowed us time to tell all of our stories without the pressure of ‘Is this a structured joke?’ ” she said. Most episodes of “You Had To Be There” center around a spontaneous and unfiltered conversation between the co-hosts and a guest comedian on anything from their personal lives to the latest pop-culture phenomenon. “We learned how to interview as a duo,” added Schaefer, “how to listen and let someone else shine and be funny, and how to take our natural chemistry and translate that into something for TV.” In the summer of 2012, the pair were offered a gig hosting a late-night MTV talk show, “Nikki & Sara Live,” where the two comedians now deftly handle the pressure of performing every week in front of a live studio audience, and skillfully exchange off-the-cuff quips with Hollywood celebrities and pop-music icons.

Big-draw comics have also waded into podcast territory. In 2005, Ricky Gervais started the hugely popular “The Ricky Gervais Show,” and in 2009 Adam Carolla, a radio and television personality, set a record by drawing over fifty-nine million unique downloads of his show over a two-year period. Marc Maron continues to churn out “WTF” twice a week without fail, even as his career in television and standup has begun to flourish. Maron has also proven podcasts’ ability to promote comics in an age when the influence of a half-hour special on cable or a spot on a late-night talk show has drastically diminished. The up-and-coming standup Nate Bargatze’s appearance on “WTF,” along with the host’s endorsement of his act, led to an unprecedented career surge. “Maron’s changed my life more than late-night spots have,” he told Splitsider, a comedy news Web site. “He has so many downloads. You’re on for an hour, and you’ve been talking about your life, so then people get to know you.”

Although Apple recently announced that it now serves over a billion podcast subscriptions, successfully monetizing a show, many of which offer episodes for free on iTunes, presents significant challenges. Podcasts still remain on the fringes of the media landscape, and advertisers have yet to jump onboard wholesale. Few comedians find podcasting profitable at the moment, but some see a bright commercial future for the medium as it continues to evolve and become more high-profile. Maron said, “Whether you do it through an app, or through a subscription service, or through advertising, or through merchandizing, or through selling episodes, there’s no reason to think that people can’t generate a living of one kind or another from podcasting. It just really all depends on the popularity of your podcast and how you take advantage of the possible revenue streams.” Carolla, for instance, entered into a revenue-sharing deal with Amazon through his Web site, and Maron sells select episodes as well as full-archive subscriptions. (The fifty most recent episodes of “WTF” are free through his Web site, iTunes, and mobile app.)

But at the moment, for the majority of comics, a podcast alone will not generate significant income or make them a household name. However, by driving audiences to live shows and helping create loyal fan bases, it can prove to be an efficient way of ascending to the next career level. “Podcasts are a bigger help for mid-level comedians looking to get more exposure, who already have a bit of an audience, than they are for people just starting out,” said Adam Frucci, the editor of Splitsider and a longtime performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.