OpenAI buys TBPN for ‘hundreds of millions’

• 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.

• The Podcast Show in London has announced a new set of speakers. The event is in mid-May; here’s a discount.

• Podscribe unveiled its Industry Ranker for March. In podcasts, The Diary of a CEO is #1 by downloads and views per episode; Crime Junkie reaches the most people; The MeidasTouch Podcast gets the most downloads a month. Spotify remains the top publisher; and BetterHelp is #1 advertiser.

• Spotify has published a report called “The Sound-On Era”, promoting the advantage of audio. The company, which trumpeted video as the future as little as two years ago, describes audio as actively engaging fans “in ways visual formats cannot match”, says that “while screens distract, audio accompanies”, and highlights that podcasts are a medium rooted in audio.

  • “90% of advertisers find multi-platform video/audio hybrids (ads that adapt based on screen focus) to be appealing”, the company says. It’s good to see the company acknowledging this; currently, when you upload a video podcast to Spotify, it makes the audio mix entirely unavailable to listeners - ensuring that no adaption for audio is possible.

People news

• Bo Lueders, the co-host of the hardcore, punk and metal show HardLore Podcast, has died, the podcast has announced. He was 38.

Tips and tricks - with the Podnews Report Card

• Headliner has ideas on how to build a podcast brand in 2026. Making a system, staying consistent, and “being sticky” are some of the methods they’re suggesting.

Podcast News - with Airwave

With Airwave: History Dispatches covers people, places, events and even objects from throughout history. The latest episode looks at a dark piece of Soviet history, and a crime that continues to be hidden from many people.

The Podnews Weekly Review this week talks with Tom Leone from Brkthru about the company’s attribution tools for advertisers; and the CEO of Beehiiv.

The new Director General of the BBC, Matt Brittin, has somewhat surprisingly released a podcast: What We Don’t Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem. The first episode is entitled “Who Is Matt Brittin?”, with more than an hour of detail. It’s apparently recorded before he got the job at the BBC - a role which includes intense public scrutiny; so we can tell you that doing the podcast “fits in to his gap year plan”, and he enjoys baking lemon drizzle-cake.

No family has more unfathomable privilege, unbelievable scandal, and unspeakable secrets than the British Royals. In The Royalist, veteran royal correspondent Tom Sykes draws on decades of reporting to expose the rivalries, paranoia, power-plays, and media manipulations that define the modern royals - and how personality, privilege, and fear drive decisions behind palace walls. Find out how the secret world of the Palace really operates in this weekly podcast.

Following the success of over 300 “Celebrity Trials” podcast episodes, Caloroga Shark Media announces the next evolution of the series, relaunching it as Daily Crime & Justice. The show will continue to deliver in-depth reporting of the explosive courtroom proceedings surrounding the biggest names in music, film, sports, and entertainment, while expanding its scope to include other high-profile trials that captivate the nation and reshape the justice system in America and abroad.