OpenAI buys TBPN for ‘hundreds of millions’

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OpenAI has bought the TBPN podcast, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Financial Times says the purchase price is in the “low hundreds of millions”. If true, it’s likely that this is one of the biggest deals for a podcast in the medium’s history (Joe Rogan’s renewal at Spotify being $250mn in 2024). TBPN has eleven staff, has around 70,000 viewers per daily episode, and is reported to generate $30mn in revenue this year; it will remain editorially independent, the show says in a statement. The live tech show, which is also available as a relatively small podcast, “treats Silicon Valley like a sports league”, says Tubefilter.
Newsletter platform Beehiiv has launched a full podcast hosting platform.. It contains full transcripts, distributes to Apple, Spotify and more, and comes with a full website; analytics are built “to IAB standards”, and you can bundle your podcast for paying subscribers to your newsletter; Beehiiv will take no additional fees. CEO Tyler Denk recently shared that Q1 2026 was beehiiv’s best quarter in history, as the company added $4.5M ARR, sent more than 10 billion emails, and crossed 50,000 active users.
- We have a full review with Tyler Denk on The Podnews Weekly Review this week.
- A number of shows have moved over to Beehiiv with the launch, including Tasteland, Womansplain, and AI Report.
- Podnews has also learnt that Beehiiv is to hire a Head of Podcasts.
Red Seat Ventures has launched its own invitation-only podcast hosting company, called Speakeasy. It offers hosting, ad-supported monetization, AI-powered analytics and support for RSS, HLS and video. It also integrates Supercast, the membership platform acquired in February.

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