The Powers That Be: Daily

Media investor and new BuzzFeed majority stakeholder Byron Allen joins Dylan to discuss his plans for the platform—and his long-term goal of building the world’s biggest media company. They discuss how the acquisition could help boost awareness for his app, Local Now, and his plan to ultimately turn BuzzFeed into a free streaming service (like YouTube) to appeal to advertisers and content creators.

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John Ourand joins Peter to chew over the NBA’s buzzy postseason, and assess how the league’s media rights holders are faring: NBC and Peacock pulling 9 million-plus per game, ESPN nursing a four-game-sweep hangover, and Amazon a distant third in ratings. Then they discuss how the NFL, MLB, and Apple are adjusting their playbook ahead of the 2028 rights cycle.

Marianna Sotomayor joins Peter to discuss Ken Paxton's blowout victory over John Cornyn in the Texas Republican Senate runoff—and whether Trump’s endorsement tipped the scales. Then they turn to the Republican backlash over the president’s $1.8 billion legal slush fund, his D.C. building spree, and the possibility that the party is throwing away the midterms.  

Julia Alexander joins Peter to discuss Google’s pivot from traditional search to Gemini-powered agentic A.I.—and what happens to publishers when nearly 70 percent of queries no longer produce a single click. Then they discuss Byron Allen's $20M BuzzFeed bet, and his (slightly muddled) plan to YouTube-ify the brand.

Jon Kelly returns in the hot seat for a spirited conversation about the roiling drama at the DNC: the botched autopsy report, Ken Martin’s tenuous hold on power, and whether it’s all navel-gazing in between news cycles or a midterm asterisk.

On a very special Memorial Day episode, Jon Kelly rejoins the show to discuss a plethora of pressing digital media agenda items: the second- and third-order effects of James Murdoch's Vox acquisition; Barbara Peng's ouster from Business Insider; and the between-the-lines on Jeff Bezos's warning shot about The Washington Post during his CNBC sit-down.

Jason Stein, the sports investor and indefatigable pickleball advocate, joins John to discuss the flow of private equity into sports at all levels, the commercialization of the NCAA, the future of youth sports…. and Apollo’s $225 million investment in Pickleball Inc.

Ian Krietzberg joins Peter to discuss a wild week for OpenAI, from the (somewhat anticlimactic) denouement of Elon Musk’s “stealing a charity” lawsuit to Sam Altman signaling that a potential I.P.O. filing is on the near horizon. Then they take a microscope to Donald Trump’s latest round of A.I. investments.

Julia Ioffe joins Peter to break down Trump’s pressure campaign against Cuba, where the administration seems to be deploying parts of the Maduro playbook: a D.O.J. indictment of Raúl Castro, Marco Rubio targeting Cuba's GAESA conglomerate, and a humanitarian collapse amid negotiations between Havana and the C.I.A. But if Trump isn’t after the country’s oil, what's the actual goal here?

Dylan Byers joins Peter to discuss his report that Paramount leadership is preparing to potentially strip Bari Weiss of operational control at CBS News after seven and a half months of bad press, a handful of unforced errors, and a belated epiphany that her role should have been circumscribed to editorial decisions. Then they turn to the New York Times newsroom’s quiet revolt against Nicholas Kristof's Israel op-ed.