Bill Simmons has acknowledged that The Ringer fans “just didn’t like” the ChatGPT-sponsored segments that emerged on the company’s podcast network earlier this year. The partnership between the OpenAI-owned chatbot service and Simmons’ company became national news after segments built around ChatGPT prompts proliferated across multiple Ringer shows. Simmons also used the service to recreate Roger Ebert-style movie reviews that the late film critic wasn’t alive to cover, on his movie podcast, The Rewatchables. The Ringer’s senior conversation strategist (and former head of content) Sean Fennessey said in an interview that he “didn’t like” the part and told Simmons as much. A new report from Bloomberg shows that The Ringer, owned by Spotify, quietly dropped sponsorship after the uproar. And Simmons acknowledges the mistake. “Last spring, we thought we could integrate AI research for integrated content segments for a couple of our shows in the same way that some of our competitors were doing (and so were leagues like the NFL). I’ll always try to be early rather than late on something,” Simmons said in a statement to Bloomberg. “This time we learned almost immediately that those segments weren’t right for us; our audience just didn’t like them.” ChatGPT-sponsored segments primarily appeared on Simmons’ own podcast and on The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. As Bloomberg’s Ashley Carman reported in conjunction with Ringer news, the intense backlash to artificial intelligence has been felt by many online personalities lately. But OpenAI and Anthropic have spent more than $13 million combined on podcast advertising in the past three months alone, according to PodScribe data cited by Bloomberg. The rejection of The Ringer’s ChatGPT agreement could be a sign of a more informed and educated audience. AI companies and their leaders have increasingly drawn the scorn of Americans as more of the economy relies on AI, corporate valuations and data centers spring up across the country. Credit to Simmons and Spotify for listening to the audience instead of chasing money.
