TBPN has nearly sold out its advertising inventory for 2026 through annual, category-exclusive sponsorship deals, co-host Jordi Hays said at Axios Communicators Live, per Axios.

According to the report, the media startup’s approach reflects a shift toward creator-led companies that prioritize loyal and engaged audiences over traditional network models.

“I wanted revenue predictability, and so every deal that we did this year and for next year, we did on an annualized basis, and so I pitched every advertiser that we were basically building like a kind of Formula One team,” Hays told Axios’ Eleanor Hawkins.

Co-host John Coogan added, “Every sponsor is in every episode, all the clips. You come along the ride across all of these different versions of the show.”

TBPN’s partnership model operates on year-long, category-exclusive deals, preventing competitors from buying advertising space once a brand commits. “We work with a lot of enterprise software companies. You don’t just decide to spend a million dollars on software from seeing one ad,” Hays said. “We wanted to make sure that every advertiser was effectively in every piece of content we put out.”

The profitable company, which has no outside investors, expects to generate $5 million in ad revenue in 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal. Former Postmates and HQ Trivia executive Dylan Abruscato recently joined TBPN to help triple that ad revenue to $15 million in 2026.

Show Format and Reach

Coogan and Hays launched TBPN (“Technology Business Programming Network”) in 2024 after working as investors and entrepreneurs. The daily, three-hour live show streams on X and YouTube and covers tech and finance in the style of an ESPN “SportsCenter” broadcast.

High-profile guests have included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Coogan described the show as the “Pat McAfee Show of tech” for its long-form livestream format featuring commentators.

Branding Strategy

TBPN worked with Los Angeles-based creative agency Day Job to develop its distinctive branding, according to Business Insider. 

Day Job co-founder Rion Harmon described the vision as a “cacophony of logos” slapped across the screen, inspired by Formula 1 racecars, combined with a “country club” forest green color scheme and VHS visual effects.

“They’re doing something new,” Harmon told Business Insider. “It doesn’t feel like a stuffy, sort of normal sort of journalism thing. It feels more alive. It feels vibrant. We were trying to capture their energy, right? It’s funny to just be overly sponsored.”

“With Day Job, what separates them is they will make four or five different brand directions that are all viable and all justifiable in different ways,” Hays said.

Network Strategy

Despite early success, the co-hosts said they do not plan to build a larger network. “We’re not a network,” Hays told Axios, referencing Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who built up talent that later departed.

“Networks had a lot of leverage when it was super expensive to create content and distribute it,” Hays said. “You needed huge teams, and now you can just, like, open up a laptop and start creating content, and so it’s going to be really, really hard for businesses of all types to retain talent.”

TBPN plans to expand coverage of publicly traded companies after signing a partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, which provides access to the exchange floor. “We very much want the show to be everywhere. That’s the road,” Coogan said.

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