Steven Bartlett and Authentic Brands Launch OBSN Venture

Steven Bartlett, the creator behind one of the world's most-downloaded podcasts, has partnered with Authentic Brands Group to launch OBSN, a new brand development venture.

The deal pairs Bartlett's direct-to-consumer instincts with Authentic's licensing and brand-management infrastructure, giving the venture a corporate backbone most creator-led launches lack. Variety first reported the partnership.

Who is doing what?

Bartlett brings the audience side. His podcast, The Diary of a CEO, ranks among the top shows globally on Spotify and YouTube, and he has built additional reach through Dragons' Den, his investment activities, and a large social following. That distribution is the core asset OBSN will monetize.

Authentic Brands Group brings the operational side. The company owns and manages a portfolio of consumer and media brands and has a track record of scaling labels through licensing, retail partnerships, and acquisitions.

What does OBSN actually do?

According to the announcement, OBSN will develop brands — taking concepts from idea to market while leveraging Bartlett's media reach to shortcut the customer-acquisition costs that sink most new consumer products.

For practitioners, the model is worth watching because it inverts the usual flow:

• Traditional path: build a product, then buy attention through paid media.
• OBSN path: start with an owned audience of millions, then build products the audience already signals it wants.

If it works, it becomes a template for podcasters and creators with comparable reach who currently rely on sponsorship revenue.

Why this matters for the creator economy

The sponsorship market has tightened. Advertisers are demanding performance guarantees, and CPMs across podcasting have come under pressure as inventory has grown. Creators with large audiences are responding by shifting from renting their reach to advertisers and toward owning the products sold against it.

Bartlett is not the first to make the move, but the Authentic partnership differentiates OBSN from typical creator merchandising plays. Access to an established brand-management group means supply chain, retail distribution, and licensing expertise that creators almost never build in-house.

The credibility question cuts both ways. Audience trust transfers to products only when quality holds; a failed launch can damage the media asset that made the venture possible in the first place.

What to watch next

The first brands to come out of OBSN will be the real test. Watch for whether the venture launches owned labels from scratch, acquires existing brands, or licenses names from Authentic's portfolio — each path implies a different margin structure and a different level of risk to Bartlett's core media business.