Episode Details

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During San Francisco Tech Week a few weeks ago, we co-hosted our first New Media Summit with Yahoo, bringing together media’s biggest names for candid conversations on where the industry goes next.

One of our speakers was Dylan Abruscato, President of TBPN, which has had a huge year. He joined us to share how a bootstrapped, 10-person live tech show became one of the most valuable ad slots in Silicon Valley, why live remains “a truly unskippable ad format,” and why reaching a niche audience can be worth more than reaching a big one.

Dylan began his career in live TV at SNL and CNBC. He then helped run HQ Trivia through its rise and fall, and built his own live interactive game show before joining TBPN, a daily, three-hour tech variety show hosted by John Coogan and Jordi Hays. Under Dylan, it grew to roughly $25 million in annual revenue with 30 year-long sponsors, led by presenting sponsor Ramp. Six months ago, it was acquired by OpenAI.

In our in-depth episode, we discuss:

* Why the OpenAI deal had little to do with the show itself, and how the marketing and comms advisory work built into TBPN’s sponsorships became the real reason behind the acquisition

* The Super Bowl stunts that preceded the deal: a hyper-local 15-second spot built from over a thousand founder logos, and claudewithads.com

* How TBPN copied Formula 1’s sponsorship model: year-long deals, category exclusivity, 100% share of voice, and an ad read to Mark Zuckerberg as he took his seat

* Why the show stayed intentionally niche, and why it only takes one or two founders switching platforms for a tech sponsor’s ad to pay for itself

* Inside a daily live show: the 6 a.m. gym sessions, the three-hour run of show, last-minute guest booking, and the vibe-coded internal tools that power it all

Watch or listen now across YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and X

Download the transcript 👇

Timestamps

(0:00) Meet Dylan Abruscato(2:20) Why OpenAI acquired TBPN(6:48) What changed after the acquisition(7:43) Will frontier models come on the show?(8:17) What makes TBPN so vibrant(9:32) Prepping for a daily live show(10:46) Why live streaming is hot(12:04) Are niche audiences more valuable?(

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