OpenAI has spent the past few weeks seemingly trying to refocus on the use of business AI instead of so-called “side quests,” abandoning AI video generator and its plans for adult themed chatbot. So this week, the company announced it’s jumping into the media business.
OpenAI said it is acquiring the Technology Business Programming Network, better known as TBPN, which runs a 3-hour weekday show that discusses the biggest topics — and brings in the biggest names — in the technology business.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights in training and using its AI programs.)
OpenAI said it added TBPN “to help create a space for real, constructive conversation about the changes AI is making,” Fidji Simo, CEO of AGI deployment at OpenAI, wrote in a message to employees shared by OpenAI. Simo said that the company also wants to use the power of TBPN in advertising. “They are very interested in where this industry is going, their marketing ideas impressed me,” said Simo.
TBPN launched in October 2024 and has been compared to ESPN in the way it covers technology — two guys on a big desk with news, analysis, commentary and gossip on topics like AI, crypto, startups and the defense industry. Project managers and co-founders, Jordi Hays and John Coogan, had big names in technology in the studio – Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, entrepreneur Mark Cuban and Marc Benioff of Salesforce, to name a few.
The show airs live from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. PT Monday through Friday on YouTube and X from the Ultradome, a studio in the Hollywood Film District. The show has 70,000 viewers every day and looks set to make more than $30 million this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.
TBPN CEO Hays acknowledged in a statement that the show was “critical” for the AI industry.
“After getting to know Sam and the OpenAI team, what really stood out was their openness to feedback and commitment to getting this right,” Hays said. “Moving from a comment to a real impact on how this technology is distributed and understood around the world is very important to us.”
In an era of fast-moving media integration, it’s a fair question — can TBPN continue to say what it really thinks, or does that ruffle OpenAI’s feathers? In his statement, Simo said OpenAI wants the show to retain its “programmatic independence.”
“TBPN will continue to make its plans, choose its guests, make its own planning decisions,” he said. “That’s the foundation of their credibility, and it’s something we’re clearly protecting as part of this agreement.”
Altman, founder of OpenAI, echoed that sentiment in a post on X. and calling TBPN his “favorite tech show.”
“We want them to continue that 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 with some stupid decisions at times.”
The acquisition caused some criticism and concern on social media as people questioned whether TBPN could really maintain its editorial independence.
“Journalists doing independent journalism have been decimated by layoffs and are now nearly extinct — while the goals of their independent reporting provide hundreds of millions of dollars to experts,” David Sirota, longtime columnist and founder of the investigative newspaper Lever, told X. “What stage of media dystopia is this?”
TBPN will be under the direction of OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane, who joined the company in October 2024 and is the company’s chief strategist in working with government officials. Over the decades, she worked in President Bill Clinton’s White House — helping to handle the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations — and as press secretary to Vice President Al Gore. Lekane also founded a procrypto super PAC called Fairshake that helped defeat anticrypto candidates during the 2024 election and helped Airbnb fight housing laws.
