After cutting back on “side quests,” OpenAI bought a talk show

OpenAI has spent the past few weeks apparently trying to refocus on using AI in business rather than what executives called “side tasks,” and ditching its software. AI video generator And her plans for Adult-themed chatbot. So the company announced this week that it is moving into the media business.

OpenAI said it was Acquisition of Technology Business Programming Networkknown as TBPN, presents a 3-hour weekday show that tackles the biggest topics — and the biggest names — in technology.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent company of CNET, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’s copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

OpenAI said it added TBPN “to help create space for a real and constructive conversation about the changes that AI is creating,” Fidji Simo, CEO of AGI Deployment at OpenAI, wrote in an article. Message to employees Shared by OpenAI. The company also wanted to capitalize on TBPN’s marketing prowess, Simo said. “They have a strong pulse on where the industry is headed, and their ideas and marketing ideas really impressed me,” Simo said.

TBBN It launched in October 2024 and has been compared to ESPN in how it covers technology – two guys in a big desk carrying news, analysis, commentary and banter on topics like artificial intelligence, cryptography, startups and the defense industry. The show’s hosts and co-founders, Gordie Hayes and John Cogan, had some of the biggest names in tech in the studio — OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, entrepreneur Mark Cuban, and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, to name a few.

The show is broadcast live from 11am to 2pm PT Monday through Friday YouTube and X From the Ultradome, a studio in the Hollywood Film District. The show is watched by 70,000 viewers daily, and looks set to generate more than $30 million in revenue this year. According to the Wall Street Journal.

TBPN co-host Hayes acknowledged in a statement that the show was “important” for the AI ​​industry.

“After getting to know Sam and the OpenAI team, what stood out most was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right,” Hayes said. “Going from commentary to really impacting how this technology is distributed and understood globally is very important to us.”

In an era Unify fast-moving mediaIt’s a fair question – can TBPN continue to say what it really thinks, even if it upsets OpenAI? Simo said in her statement that OpenAI wants the show to maintain its “editorial independence.”

“TBPN will continue to run its own programming, select its own guests and make its own editorial decisions,” she said. “This is fundamental to their credibility, and is something we explicitly protect as part of this agreement.”

Altman, founder of OpenAI, echoed this sentiment by saying: Posting on X. He also described TBPN as his “favorite technology show.”

“We want them to keep it going and do what they do well,” Altman said. “I don’t expect them to go easy on us, I’m sure I’ll do my part to help make that happen by making stupid decisions sometimes.”

The acquisition sparked some criticism and concern on social media as people questioned whether TBPN could truly maintain its editorial independence.

“Reporters who practice accountability journalism are being battered by mass layoffs and are now on the verge of extinction — while the targets of their accountability reporting give hundreds of millions of dollars to critics,” David Sirota, a longtime columnist and founder of the investigative news outlet The Lever, said. Published on X. “What is this media dystopia?”

TBPN will report to Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Who joined the company in October 2024 He is the company’s main strategist in working with government officials. Decades ago, he worked in the White House under President Bill Clinton — where he helped handle the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations — and as press secretary for Vice President Al Gore. Lehane also created a cryptocurrency super PAC called Fairshake that helped defeat anti-crypto candidates during the 2024 election and helped Airbnb fight housing regulations.