PodcastOne Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 12, 2025
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Operator

Welcome to the PodcastOne Third Quarter Fiscal twenty twenty five Financial Results and Business Update Conference Call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Aaron Sullivan, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the PodcastOne fiscal third quarter twenty twenty five business update and financial results conference call and webcast. During today's presentation, all parties will be in listen only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

On our call today is Kit Gray, President and Founder of PodcastOne and myself, Aaron Sullivan, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that some of the statements made on today's call are forward looking and are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve various risks and uncertainties. These statements include, but are not limited to statements regarding the future performance of the company, including expected future financial results and expected future growth in the business. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed on this call for a variety of reasons. Please refer to PodcastOne's filings with the SEC for information about factors which could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements, including those described in PodcastOne's Form 10 K for the year ended 03/31/2024, filed by the company with the SEC on 07/01/2024, and subsequent SEC filings made by the company.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

You will find reconciliations of non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures discussed today in the company's earnings release, which is posted on its Investor Relations website. The company encourages you to periodically visit its Investor Relations website for important content. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, contains time sensitive information and reflects management's view as of the date of this call, 02/12/2025. And except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information after the date of this call. I'd like to highlight to investors that this call is being recorded.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

PodcastOne is making it available to investors and the media via webcast and a replay will be available on Podcast ONE's IR website in the Events section shortly following the conclusion of the call. Additionally, it is the property of the company and any redistribution, retransmission or rebalcast of the call or the webcast in any form without the company's expressed written consent is strictly prohibited. Now, I would like to turn the call over to PodcastOne's President, Kit Gray.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Thank you, and welcome to our fiscal third quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. As a reminder, we are not on a calendar reporting year and our fiscal year twenty twenty five ends on March 31. Today, we will provide a brief overview of PodcastOne and the continuously growing podcast market and highlight our most recent successes before passing on to Aaron for the financial results. After his comments, I will close with an update on our strategic initiatives, including our recent partnership with ART19, Amazon's podcast hosting service and what we are looking forward to in the quarter to come. Lastly, we will open it up for Q and A.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

PodcastOne is a premier podcasting network that has played a key role in the evolution of the podcast industry since its founding in 2012. As the only pure play publicly traded podcast company in The United States, PodcastOne provides a platform for top tier content creators offering comprehensive support across production, marketing, sales and distribution. Podcasting has become one of the most trusted and engaging media formats with over 4,000,000 podcasts registered worldwide as of 2025. The industry continues to grow with advertisers projected to invest over 2,400,000,000.0 in podcast advertising this year. PodcastOne is a sales network of over 500 of the largest advertisers to reach core demographics effectively and efficiently.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

PodcastOne and its 196 shows are positioned at the center of its growth, capitalizing on both the increasing audience demand and the effectiveness of podcast advertising as a high ROI media channel. PodcastOne has been ranked as a top 10 U. S. Podcast publisher for the second consecutive month by PodTrax with monthly unique U. S.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Audiences of five point two million and sixteen point two million U. S. Downloads and streams. Podcasting continues to be a cultural relevant medium shaping conversations around major events. Previously, we saw its impact during US elections.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

And more recently, it played a role in covering the recent California wildfires. As an LA based company, we witnessed the devastation firsthand. Members of our own team saw their communities destroyed and lives upended in a matter of moments. While much of the country watched the tragedy unfold on television, others turned to podcasting for unfiltered perspectives. Podcast one host Adam Krolla was among those directly impacted.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Displaced from his home, he turned to his podcast to share his experience in almost real time. Broadcasting from my hotel room, he recounted the timeline of events leading to his evacuation, the uncertainty surrounding the status of his condo and the mixed reports he received. Despite the circumstances, Carolla used his platform to provide a raw and personal firsthand account of the disaster while blending his sharp observational and often sarcastic style of storytelling and social commentary into the situation. With millions of impressions, this moment reinforced podcasting's unique ability to inform, engage and mobilize audiences in real time, turning personal stories into powerful conversations that drive awareness, empathy and action. With our industry leading platform, we empower podcast hosts to reach their full potential by providing comprehensive world class support.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Our three sixty degree marketing capabilities drive growth and exposure, enabling talent to focus on what they do best creating great content. This support includes access to studio space, marketing, production, editing, distribution and public relations. Additionally, our experienced direct sales team leverages long standing relationships with advertisers and brands seeking to connect with the highly engaged audience of podcasts on our platform. As a result, during the quarter, we were thrilled to sign Stassi Schroeder to the PodcastOne platform in a multi year seven figure deal, Along with being a New York Times best selling author and reality television personality, Stasi has a captivated podcast audience for over nine years, consistently ranking among the highest rated podcasts across platforms. The acquisition reinforces PodcastOne's mission to champion female voices in the podcasting space.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

As part of this collaboration, Stasi will also be integrated into the PodcastOne extensive promotional and marketing initiatives spanning multiple genres with plans to expand into live shows, merchandising and adaptations. The majority of our revenue continues to be generated via our direct sales team with advertisers who want access to the unique audiences that we can reach on our platform. In addition to our direct sales team and programmatic ads, the strategic partnership with Amazon's ART19 announced in January creates a third core revenue channel for the monetization of our library of shows. More on ARRT19 in a moment. To complement our core revenue channels, we also diversified our emerging revenue streams that provide additional avenues for high margin growth, while diversifying our revenue mix and service offering to the entire PodcastOne ecosystem.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

We officially launched PodcastOne Pro in conjunction with our new state of the art podcast production studio in Beverly Hills. We have seen great success from major brands such as Boost Mobile and Microsoft who want to harness the power of podcasting and rely on our technology and talent to make it happen. PodcastOne Pro offers customizable services with a la carte options to meet exact production needs for a full three sixty solution. The new studio enables creators to seamlessly produce, record and broadcast their shows with unmatched clarity and precision. Another way PodcastOne and its talent generate additional revenue is through live shows.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Stassi Schroeder was among the first to expand her podcast into a live event format in 2019, quickly selling out subsequent tours in 2020 and 2023. We look forward to supporting Stasi and our other hosts in exploring live show opportunities in 2025. Now before going further, I'd like to turn the call over to Aaron, our CFO, to walk through the financial results for the financial third quarter. Aaron?

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Thank you, Kit. As Kit mentioned at the beginning of the call, I want to remind listeners that our fiscal year ends on March 31. Revenue in the fiscal third quarter of twenty twenty five increased 22% to $12,700,000 compared to $10,400,000 in the same year ago quarter. Operating loss in the fiscal third quarter of twenty twenty five was $1,600,000 compared to an operating loss of $2,600,000 in the same year ago quarter. This was primarily driven by lower non cash compensation expense.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Net loss in the fiscal third quarter of twenty twenty five was $1,600,000 or $0.06 a share per basic and diluted share compared to a net loss of $2,600,000 or $0.11 per basic and diluted share in the same year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA in the fiscal third quarter of twenty twenty five was negative $700,000 compared to adjusted EBITDA of negative $400,000 in the same year ago quarter. The change in adjusted EBITDA was primarily due to timing of content acquisition costs. We ended the fiscal third quarter with no debt on our balance sheet and $600,000 of cash and cash equivalents as of 12/31/2024. As we look ahead, I'd like to also briefly touch on guidance.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

We're pleased with the progress this quarter and given the revenue generating deals that are currently in place for fiscal Q4 along with the equity based revenue share deals with certain podcast talent also starting to be effective in fiscal Q4, we are comfortable reaffirming our fiscal twenty twenty five guidance. We expect revenues for the full year to be at least $51,000,000 representing an increase of at least 17% when compared to revenues of $43,300,000 in fiscal twenty twenty four. Given the continued strong double digit revenue growth, we also project positive adjusted EBITDA for the full year of fiscal twenty twenty five. Now, I'd like to turn the call back to Kit for some additional comments on the quarter before wrapping up with questions from the audience.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Thanks, Aaron. As highlighted, the momentum we're building continues to drive meaningful financial results, which is a direct result of our extremely scalable platform and the execution by our team at PodcastOne. One of the biggest strategic and financial partnerships took place in January with the move of our library of shows to Amazon's podcast hosting service, R19. This move underscores our commitment to innovation and delivering exceptional value to our talent, advertisers, listeners and shareholders. By partnering with Amazon's ART19, we are not only future proofing our hosting needs, but unlocking new growth opportunities by leveraging their cutting edge technology and advertising opportunities.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

For the listener, there will be no change. They will still be able to access Podcast One's hit shows wherever they choose, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube. But for Podcasts One is a big change and I would like to review some of the key benefits. As an overview, Amazon has already invested heavily in podcasting, acquiring both Wondery and R19 in the last few years. While PodcastOne is now using R19's hosting service, R19 is paying us for access to our library of shows.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Secondly, there are operational and technological advantages. ART nineteen's advanced CMS content management system will improve efficiency, reducing the time and resources spent on back end technology, allowing us to sunset most of our technology used for hosting, leading to cost effective savings and increased efficiency on our staff. ART nineteen can provide enhanced analytics, including geo targeting and audience insights and targeting. Amazon's ongoing investment in podcasting technology should bring future advancements to ART nineteen's capabilities. On top of that, we will see revenue growth and stability.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

PodcastOne will receive a minimum guarantee revenue stream of $15,000,000 over three years. And as PodcastOne scales its network and impressions, the minimum guarantee increases ensuring upside potential. This will allow us to better forecast the value of shares and improve cash flow predictability. R19 acts as a complement to our current sales team and programmatic ad sales leading to an increase in revenue through R19's integration with Amazon's advertising ecosystem. Amazon can package PodcastOne's inventory with their premium ad offerings across podcasts and Amazon Prime TV, creating additional revenue streams beyond our reach previously.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

We also have a competitive edge and M and A potential. The deal strengthens PodcastOne's position as a top 10 podcast network, aiding in talent acquisition by providing better monetization forecasting. It has the potential to open PodcastOne up for future partnerships with Amazon's ecosystem as podcasts both flock towards video and consumer preferences move towards watching their favorite hosts, not just listening. Overall, the partnership with Amazon's R19 provides immediate financial security, multiple revenue growth opportunities, better technology and a stronger competitive position, making it a significant milestone for PodcastOne, all while aligning with PodcastOne's long term growth strategy and reinforcing our leadership role in the evolving podcasting industry. In closing, we delivered a strong fiscal third calendar fourth quarter, achieving double digit revenue growth once again.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

In fact, this was PodcastOne's largest revenue result for the period. The momentum continued into the start of calendar twenty twenty five, marked by major accomplishments, including the collaboration with Amazon, the retention and extension of flagship podcasts from Adam Carolla, Brendan Schaumb and Caitlin Bristow. PodcastOne now hosts 196 shows having added 64 new programs in 2024 and ten exciting new shows in last quarter alone. PodcastOne's talent roster continues to expand supported by a debt free balance sheet and a multiple accretive growth opportunities. We are actively evaluating M and A prospects not only to acquire top content networks, but also to enhance our platform with production, sales and technology acquisitions that strengthen our offerings for hosts and advertisers.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

PodcastOne remains the only pure play publicly traded podcast company in The U. S. Our expanding content portfolio, strategic partnerships and revenue diversification efforts continue to create long term shareholder value. Thank you for joining us. And at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to the operator for Q and A.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Operator?

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer Your first question comes from the line of Sean McGowan from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Good morning guys. Can you hear me okay?

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Yes. Hey, Sean. Good morning.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Okay. Good morning. Hi, Aaron.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Yes, a couple of questions. So, you've talked in the past about cost of sales reflecting content acquisition costs. So you're I gather from you reaffirming the guidance that you're comfortable that that's going to go down a lot in the fourth quarter. So what drives that? Is it simply the timing?

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Or is there something else behind that?

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Hey, Sean. Aaron, I'll take this one, Kit. You're correct, Sean. It's timing. We had a few revenue deals we were expecting in Q3 that kind of moved into Q4.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

We had the kind of the content cost or the minimum guarantee in Q3 that we had to expand some pay to our talent without that revenue coming into the same quarter. So it's really a timing thing.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Okay. And then the in G and A, the level of G and A spending seen in the third quarter, is that what we should expect around that level to continue or were there unusual positives and negatives in the quarter there? We came a little lower than we

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

thought.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

It should be pretty consistent with that, Sean,

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

yes. Okay. And maybe a couple of questions from Kit. So where and maybe you too, Aaron. So where in the P and L would we see the financial benefits of working with ART 2019?

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Is it multiple places or is it primarily in the color cost side or where do you see that?

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

I'll take this and you can oh, yes, go ahead. Go ahead.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yes, go ahead. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. You're you're gonna see it, with some cost efficiencies on our operational side of things.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Right? So there'll be less, cost, for our team, to run tech and and do some stuff there. So a lot of efficiencies there and I'll have our team be working on some other projects, not, not as much on that, which which will be great. And then you'll see, like I mentioned in the call, revenue growth on a consistent basis. We'll have payments coming in from our 2019 based on that minimum guarantee audience threshold that we'll have.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

And then as we scale up, there'll be more revenues on that. So those are the, you know, I think you'll see that, you know, ancillary, which won't be as clear. I believe you'll see, pressure on our CPMs for, you know, more demand, right, if we have, effectively three units in our direct sales teams, the R19 Amazon team and either the programmatic channels monetizing our impressions, it all should work where all ships rise, right? So, we'll see hopefully, higher CPMs as we continue working with them. Aaron, I don't know if you wanna add anything to that.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

No, I think you covered it. Just maybe to clarify a little bit for you Sean, there'll be a small impact in sales and marketing, right, because that's where some of the commission is. So, yeah, obviously that's a variable expense. If we've got more revenue flowing through there, you'll see a little bit more expense there. But on the G and A side where the kind of the hosting and operational costs are, you'll see a drop in that particular line, but exactly what Kit said.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Okay. Thanks. And last question for you, Kit. So I think everybody looking in this podcast world got a kind of an eyebrow raising positive surprise on the impact that podcasting seems to have had in these various events that you cited, the election, the fires. How has that changed the competitive landscape?

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Are you seeing it seemed like last year this time last year, there was maybe a retreat by some of the major players, diminishing their commitment or not renewing at the same levels some of their content. Has that shifted now? And are you seeing competition kind of increase or get more aggressive?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

No. I mean, there's some

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

activities out there. Right? Like, I think, if you read the news, Red Sea Ventures did a deal with Fox over the last couple of days. So there's definitely, still activity in the m and a space and and we'll be a player in those type of deals as well moving forward. So I don't I you're not really seeing, that.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

What what you're seeing is just more people listening and the medium strengthening and and, you know, more dollars being spent into it. More attention by advertisers, more attention to big brands. Obviously, Amazon, no one bigger than them, and then investing a relationship with us and, continuing their their, their commitment to podcasting, I think is, is, is huge. So I only think it's, it's really helping everybody just, you know, keeping the medium exciting, you know, keeping advertisers in there and just getting better based on, you know, using technology and working with great talent to not only, you know, do audio like we have for years, but the video aspect of things and social media and events and things like that as well.

Sean McGowan
MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC

Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Good to hear from you, Sean. Talk to you later.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Leo Carpio from Joseph Gunnar. Your line is open.

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

Good morning, gentlemen. A couple of questions regarding the quarter. Can you tell us about sort of the quarter's revenues? Was it ad activity driven? Was there some sort of seasonality?

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

I mean, thinking of the third quarter, people are coming back from the beach? There's new content being placed on a platform. And then how does that drive and think about for the fourth quarter in terms of the arc that you're projecting to hit your guidance?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

I can tell you this, you always are gonna see seasonality, you know, in terms of consumption, production, and, and really ad spends. They're all a little different in, you know, November and December where people are taking some time off to be with their families. Maybe they're not as producing much content, but we can we've got an advantage because we can bank content in advance. But as far as advertisers, they go heavy because that's when people are spending money. So, we had, you know, had some good pickup in sales and some of our new shows like Stasi, as we mentioned, did really well.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

I'm looking, you know, at January and and things are looking pretty good. You know, we're We're fighting through, January is always a little slow based on people slowing down spends, but we've seen some nice numbers and nice direct sales on that front. The transition to ART19, Amazon's ART19 is taking place right now. So, we're in that phase and we'll see how that starts to roll out in this quarter. But like we mentioned, we should be we're pretty comfortable hitting those numbers that we quoted for the quarteryear.

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

Okay. And speaking of ARP 2019, when are we going to see the real financial impact of the transition? Will it be like the next I mean, two quarters from now, the beginning of twenty twenty six or more of a summer twenty twenty five calendar effect?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

No, you'll see it start to take place in the quarter that we're currently in. So, we're transitioning all our shows right now over to there, but there's some guarantees to start up and, you know, they're they're pushing hard to already, get that inventory out to their sales team and and and their system as well. We talked to them almost on a daily basis, so that's ramping up nicely. Our connects with the programmatic channels are staying input too, so that should help. And as always, our direct sales team is, you know, doing their job too.

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

Okay. And then speaking to the in terms of the prior question regarding competitive environment for talent, how does ART19 enhance your position versus say Spotify, Apple? Does having Amazon and our thinking behind you helpful in negotiations going forward and if so, how?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yeah. Good question. It does help us because we're able to kind of forecast, like I mentioned, like, three revenue generating channels, earlier rather than two. And and we'll really have a more of a science on understanding the value of shows just based on pure numbers. Right?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

How many downloads you have a month. We'll be able to kinda look at, how that's valued from those three channels. Right? Not not just two, which should help us, calculate that. It should, effectively make shows more valuable to us.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So in turn, that'll help us, you know, hopefully get some get some more shows, with better deals based on the ability to know we have cash coming in every month. We know the value better than we had before on what these shows could bring in. So that'll that'll really help us on that front. As far as the technology and the, you know, the the the use of their ad serving technology, it's great. I mean, you know, the system that we were on currently is was was good too.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

This is comparable, if not better. But that's where you'll start to see some advancements with Amazon over the next couple of years on their CMS and and ad serving capabilities. There are cool things that they can do, you know, like you can cap, commercial loads to end users. You can you can switch out copies. So if they've heard it once and things like that, then we can offer advertisers.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So that that'll take place over the next couple months. But, yeah. Yeah. We're we're excited about that. I mean, you know, it's always easier saying you're hosted by a company like Amazon rather than your own thing.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So that also will help. But, yeah, we're excited about it. It's a it's a huge deal. We we as a company spent the better part of all last year analyzing all the major platforms and potential revenue generating cost saving, aspects of the deal. And we really felt comfortable with, Art 19 and Amazon's Art 19 and how they're, you know, structured their team, their services, their their, you know, and and how they're working with us.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So, a guy I did a deal with, Andy Slater has been a good friend of mine for, twenty five years in the radio business. So, he's great and his team's great and we're really excited about the deal.

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

Okay. And then last question. I don't know if you saw this. Netflix is the news is Netflix is exploring adding video content to their a video podcast to their platform. Any sense in terms of how you might respond or too early to tell?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Well, they should have gotten into this a lot longer a while ago. If you look at all the video companies out there, you know, YouTube is is now the number one platform for consumption of podcast listening. Right? So Spotify is investing heavily in the video aspect as well. There are some, issues with that, good and bad.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

You know, Discovery is great. Some of the ad dynamics are tough. That's hard to control. But Netflix absolutely should be involved in this too. You know, the fact that they haven't gotten more into some of their shows, having recapped shows.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

And, if you look at some of the great podcasts out there, whether it's Seventh on Apple, I mean, these are big, big podcasts now that, you know, people watch the TV show and then wanna get involved in the community. So Amazon should be involved in that. They also could be involved in the IP side of things. Right? It's it's a a very effective way to prove concepts on a on a potential movie or television show and, you know, so they should definitely be involved in the podcasting space.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So I'm excited to see that they're in there and, hopefully, we have some good talks with them moving forward. But I did, yes, I saw that note, just a day or two ago. That's exciting.

Leo Carpio
Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC

All right. Well, thank you, gentlemen. And I'll go back in the queue.

Aaron Sullivan
Aaron Sullivan
CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne

Thanks, Leah.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tom White from D. A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Hey, this is Wyatt Swanson on for Tom. Thanks for taking our questions. Could you talk a little bit about how ART 19 helps to drive your programmatic advertising and maybe your expectations of how that ramps up over the next twelve to eighteen months? Do you kind of expect programmatic ads to outpace direct sales or how should we think about that?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Good question. Thanks for jumping on and appreciate the time. So, no, Amazon really doesn't have anything to do with the programmatic side of things. And it basically goes like this. So if you have three channels, right, how I mentioned our direct sales team, you've got Amazon's deal their sales team, basically, and then you have the programmatic desk.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

It's kind of a waterfall. Right? So we have access to our inventory, you know, like no one else does. We we have that first. And typically, that's because we know our CPMs on direct sales deals would be higher.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

We're able to use the talent to voice ads, choose particular shows, particular programs, use the technology to get higher CPMs in terms of behavioral targeting or or geo targeting or, you know, gender targeting, whatever that might be. That's our primary area where we'll make most of our revenue. I still think that's where it's going to be. That's where for at least the next eighteen months for sure that'll still lead lead the way. And I I believe that'll still lead the way no matter what.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

But, Amazon then will be the second, you know, funnel in terms of, impressions they get to, to access. And then after that, it will be the programmatic side of things. Now Amazon will be, hopefully selling higher CPMs than programmatic, you know, programmatic, revenues are are, you know, CPMs are typically in that $8 to $12 range. Amazon's hopefully will be higher than that. Why it will increase to your question, both on the the Amazon side of things and programmatic and and even the the digital side of our sales team revenue channel is because every episode that goes out, you know, it it stays and lives forever.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Right? So you can we're now monetizing another year of Adam Ferrola's show and, Annie's cold case files and, you know, you know, Kelty and and the Lady Gang are having another year. So we keep building our our our library and more and more people are finding out how great podcasting is and they're going back and consuming all these shows. So where we'll have an advantage is, as our library and impressions grow, we'll be able to have those three channels in there funneling in as much money as possible. I hope that gave you kind of a, an answer on the on on, your question or helped you out.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Got it. Yeah. That's very helpful.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

I appreciate it. And then I just have one

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

follow-up.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Sorry. One programmatically, you're still gonna see big money I'm sorry. Just to add to it, like, you're still gonna see, more money, you know, going in that space. Again, the brands are really excited about the podcast end user.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Right? And and, you know, I I believe, you know, with the political change in our country, there's not going to be as much restrictions on, you know, who's saying what, where for these lands if they want to reach people. So I think that'll help. I also think you're going to just see more and more in the audio spaces as audio catches up with video banner network programmatic capabilities, and and that's what we're seeing. So I still think you'll see some great revenue, growth on the programmatic channel as well.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Got it. That's super helpful.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

I appreciate it. And then I just had one follow-up. I was reading about Launchpad One. It seems like a really interesting way to discover new talent. As it relates to Art19, given that you're like sunsetting most tech used for hosting, would you maybe expect an uplift in users joining Launchpad to host their podcasts or do they host through ART nineteen now or just how should I think about that?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yeah. We're we're still gonna be working with our old company to still run Launchpad and grow Launchpad. And I agree with you. It's still a a very exciting, you know, free ability to host podcasts. And we'll be doing some things this year.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

A couple of years ago, we did a kind of a, you know, find your next great podcast, show, where, you know, some of our great podcasters were great, some of the shows and so forth. So we'll be doing some things like that to to grow that, and expand on the tech there too. Right? So now that we don't have to spend as much time on all the other stuff that we're doing because Art nineteen is taking over some

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

of it, we'll be able

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

to still do those things. So, yeah, Launchpad is definitely on our radar to focus more of our time and efforts in, moving forward.

Wyatt Swanson
Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies

Great. Thank you very much.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Sure. Thank you.

Operator

And your final question today comes from the line of Barry Syme from Litchfield. Your line is open.

Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Actually, good afternoon, I guess now. I want to talk about, the content. Kit, maybe you can talk about what podcasts are really hot right now? What's up and coming?

Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

What new podcasts have you added that you're really excited about? And what's on the runway for potentially give us a sneak preview of what you might be adding over the next month or two?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yes, sure. I highlighted, Stasi. And, you know, Vanderpump actually starts up again shortly. Vanderpump is, like, a phenomenon. We've got two shows that are focused on that, soon to be three, based on a partnership ending and and doing their own shows with Jax and Britney.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

But, so that's that's really killing it. And and Kale, Lowry, who does the Killer Network inside of Podcast one, with her network of shows, they're also launching, another show associated with that as well. So those are, you know, that's our wheelhouse. When we look at female programming, moms, that, that, that's, that's still what people are always asking for in terms of advertising and the audience is really expanding there. So we will continue to focus our efforts on shows like that.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

We have over a hundred shows that we're talking to right now. Many of them fit in that world as well as true crime. You know, a ton of true crime shows out there that are really exciting and fun, and we've got a great true crime network that a lot of them will fit into. We just launched, this past week, A and E's, Ancient Aliens. It's actually the History Channel, which is under the A and E umbrella.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So we're part of that family now. We've worked with A and E for almost eight years, the cold case file, I survived and a couple others. But I'm really high on this show. I think that, you know, the alien phenomenon is tremendous. There's some great stories and everybody has an opinion on these things.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

And, you know, recently there's there's been some alien stuff coming up on the in the news. So I think that's a really good one. We've got the power of A and E and and their TV and social media behind that as well. Those are some of the ones we're really excited about. We're going to be, you know, continuing the path of, the Farnham towns of the world and owning IP and continuing to grow that that library and reaching out and trying to sell more of those shows to to a networks to to, for second window type opportunities.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

There's great focus on our company on that as well. So those are a couple of them. But, you know, we're we're really excited about the network and the opportunities coming forward. And and, I think we're positioned really well.

Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Okay. And just, elaborating on some of the things you said in terms of some of the female programming. I know, for example, Lady Gang has a three day weekend event coming up in September. I don't think you guys are actually running that. But presumably, that has spillover effects in terms of popularity and advertising.

Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Anything on that and any other special events in addition to just podcasts you may have in the works?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yeah. We're gonna be involved in that. That's actually, you guys know where I live, in Florida. It's maybe ten minutes from where I live, here in, in Destin, Florida. And yeah.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Well, so we're gonna be involved in that. I am actually meeting with the the Kelsey and I from Lady Gang next week about finalizing some deals and some ideas down here. That's that's a cool event, and we'll be doing more of those types of things with our talent. If you notice on the roster, you'll see Caitlin Russo, Adi Gang, and, Safi. Right?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So, there's other great podcasts that aren't podcast one, The Office Ladies and a couple others. But, those are three of our biggest, most powerful shows all here. So we're we're gonna do some fun things and be involved in that. It's cool. I mean, that that's what you can do.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

When you have the podcast community or you have a a social media community, you can drive things like that, where, you know, there's gonna be a weekend of content, music, or McGrath is coming down. There's, there's gonna be, you know, eating and yoga and paddle boarding and and really just kind of a fun effect. So, PodcastOne will be involved in that as well.

Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

And turning to emerging monetization, things like movies and so on. Where are we in terms of composition of revenue? I assume, but 95% or more revenue is still traditional advertising sales and that the emerging streams are not that significant. And then on a forward looking basis, are there any negotiations in process? I'm not asking specific, which specifically, but what's the forward looking view on emerging monetization?

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Yeah. So I think when you look at advertising, it's still gonna be a big, big part of what we do. It's that ninety, ninety five zone. It's more, you know, diversified, you know, now having Art nineteen Amazon involved in that, with some, you know you're hedging your bets a little bit if you look at that on the financial side of things. So that protects us a little bit.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

PodcastOne Pro is ramping up. I mentioned, you know, Boost and Microsoft, but Lovesac, which is, I think I believe I saw they had a TV commercial around the Super Bowl as a growing brand. We've got a great show with them. Motor Trend Continues, they're now going to be in their fourth season with us. That's a really nice business.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So we're focusing on that and that'll help us with our margins quite a bit because we have the talent booking and the infrastructure in terms of producers, video, audio. So, when we charge people for that, it's our margins would be really nice. So that'll be something else that will continue in, merch, shows, you know, owning. Our parent company, Live One, is doing stuff with you know, a liquor brand and a coffee now. So we're gonna be doing more of that for some of our partnerships in the, in the talent space.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

So over the next year, year and a half, you'll start to see that, change a little bit. But again, the advertising is really our core business.

Operator

And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Kit Gray
Kit Gray
Co-Founder & President at PodcastOne

Hey guys, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and interest in Podcast ONE. We'll be at the ROTH event in March, and we'll be constantly updating everybody on things as they happen within the quarter. Again, we appreciate your time and look forward to hearing from you guys soon. Take care.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Kit Gray
      Kit Gray
      Co-Founder & President
Analysts
    • Aaron Sullivan
      CFO, Executive VP, Controller, Treasurer & Secretary at LiveOne
    • Sean McGowan
      MD & Senior Research Analyst at Roth Capital Partners, LLC
    • Leo Carpio
      Equity Research Analyst at Joseph Gunnar & Co.LLC
    • Wyatt Swanson
      Associate Vice President, Research Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies
    • Barry Sine
      Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research
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