Destiny Media Technologies Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Revenue is up 2.5% year-to-date, with a slight EBITDA of $37K and modest positive cash flow, demonstrating core business stability.
  • Negative Sentiment: Operating expenses grew 21%, fueled by nonrecurring litigation costs, noncash amortization, and a 3.5% increase in R&D infrastructure that isn’t yet revenue-producing.
  • Positive Sentiment: Launched MTR, a radio tracking service now integrated with Play MPE data to offer proprietary analytics on release timing, airplay success and social link engagement.
  • Neutral Sentiment: MTR’s current revenue contribution is immaterial and faces competitive pressure from free basic services (e.g., Apple’s), making its near-term profitability uncertain.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company has engaged an external consultant to reassess its growth strategy and may reallocate investments or explore new shareholder return approaches if revenue acceleration remains elusive.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Destiny Media Technologies Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

And, everyone, thank you for joining us on today's webinar. Before we begin, I would like to announce that we'll be referring to today's earnings release, which was sent to the newswires earlier this afternoon. I'd also like to remind you that the conference call could contain forward looking statements about Destiny Media Technologies within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward looking statements are based upon current beliefs and expectations of management and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward looking statements. Such risks are fully discussed in the company's filing with the SEC and SEDAR.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

The company does not assume any obligation to update information contained in this call. During the webinar, we will discuss certain non GAAP financial measures. The non GAAP financial measures are presented in the supplemental disclosures and should not considered in isolation of or as a substitute of or superior to the financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP and should be read in conjunction with the company's financial statements filed with the SEC and SEDAR. The non GAAP financial measures used in the company's presentation may differ from similarly titled measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation of the non GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in the earnings press release.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

Also, I'd like to mention that following the presentation, there will be a questions and answers session during which you can submit questions by selecting the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen. Your questions will be pulled in the order that they are received, and at which point, you'll be prompted to unmute your microphone before speaking. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to your host, Fred Vandenberg, chief executive officer.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Thanks, Rebecca. Thanks for to everyone joining the call. I'll just get into the the quarter results. Year to date, revenue is up 2.5% still. There was a slight decline in January.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Total year to date customers have increased by 4.9%. There's a 4.9% increase in new customers. There's a 1.4% increase in total customers. The decrease really in Q3 is a result really of a small decline in U. S.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Independent spending per release rather than the total number of customers. Expenditures increased by 21%. About half of this increase is nonrepeating litigation costs, and about half of it is noncash amortization. There's also a 3.5% increase associated with the R and D infrastructure that isn't currently revenue producing. It's associated with some of the investigations that we're doing, some of the analytics that we're doing, and I'll talk about.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

These costs are not necessary for the core business as it stands and are really undertaken to have a longer term revenue increase. EBITDA is just about it's a little bit positive, dollars 37,000. And it's we're really operating at positive cash flow, slightly positive cash flow at the current time given our spending on the litigation and capital investments. We continue to invest for scalable growth. If we break our target markets down, we really break them down into new markets and established markets, and then we separate those markets into larger business development focused clients that we invest in the platform to address and then the smaller clients that have more programmatic sales.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

We're very close to providing an automated fully automated release preparation and payment process for the smaller clients, where we'll just support those with localized websites, local ads, local recipient lists, combined with some platform investments. I think one of the things that we're really quite excited about is during the quarter, we've launched a new product called MTR, and that's really the radio tracking service. We've begun during the quarter to combine the data that is received within MTR and the data that we have with Plan P. And we've got some really good insights. There's a bit of challenge in doing that because Play MPE is recipient focused in contrast to MTR, which is station focused.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Play MPE distributes to many more people than just radio and these people at radio represent different stations, maybe more than one station or maybe there's more than one person per station, but we're connecting that data. We've created some really interesting analytics that we want to use in two different ways. But things like we'll know what time a release is made and its impact on whether it's successful or, you know, relations relationships to success. There's some inferential analytics that show Play MPE impacts the release. So you'll see some greater success with announcements within Play MPE.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Each Play MPE release has approximately 3.5 social media links. We also implemented during the quarter a tracking of those the clicks on those links. So we'll be able to report on that and then demonstrate relationships between that announcement and social media impact. We're not aware of anyone else that does this or can do this. Same thing with meter.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

There's not a promotional platform that also tracks the AirPlay data. At least we're not aware of one. And so I think this is really valuable information to our customers that we think will play a part in our revenue growth going forward. At least that's the hope. We're talking with our clients to see what information they would really find useful or valuable.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

So it's potentially something that will grow so we're addressing those larger critical clients, walnuts in the mall kind of clients. And also, I think we can package it up as a saleable product. But we're just building up these case studies. MTR connected data with Play MPE as, I think, a very valuable source of information. MTR itself is growing, but the revenue is immaterial at this stage.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

It's potentially a very disruptive technology. We have larger clients that provide charting type services that have a smaller coverage base. Like they provide reporting on fewer stations. And but they what they do is they provide charting stuff, charting information that shows a relative performance, how your track is doing relative to other tracks out in the market. So you'll see, like, the billboard top 100 kind of information.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

We don't have that at this stage. We don't have the content to do that, but MTR could do that and could do that on a global basis. It's just it would be a matter of investing in that to do that. And that's really our plan to grow at this stage. We're reinvest we're investigating what it takes to grow.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

And so we're going to be critically looking at investments going forward and whether we pursue these things. So with that, I will turn over to questions.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

Great. Thank you, Fred. So, yeah, now we'll begin our question and answer session. If you have a question, please use the raise hand option at the bottom of your screen, and your question will be pulled in the order that they are received. If you raise your hand, please ensure that you do have access to your microphone.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

And if you wish to retract your question, please just click that raise hand icon again to lower your hand. Your camera will remain off. Once prompted, you can unmute your microphone before asking your question. There is a question from Thomas. If you wanna go ahead and unmute your microphone.

Analyst

Hello?

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

Hi.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Hi. Hi, Thomas.

Analyst

First question, like, I think you guys forgot to upload the q two video on the website for investors. I wanted to look look at it and never found it.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Okay. I'll take look at that.

Analyst

Will the CFO participate in next earning calls, or, like, what's her objectives in the company? I know you haven't really touched the subject. She's kind of new, but can you just give us a little bit of information on her background or what you hope she'll bring to the team?

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Well, this I mean, the the investment in a CFO is designed to provide critical financial information. We've already been catching up on some tax related issues that we're dealing with or compliance related information. But we're Acel will be working on, you know, strategic financial information to help us grow. I I I'm not I haven't really thought of bringing her on the calls going forward. I actually would probably bring in Andrea Monday, who's our heads up our operations.

Analyst

Is is it Andrea that supervise sales and marketing as well? Or I can't remember That's right.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

That's right. Yeah.

Analyst

So you think sales and marketing line item will increase? Or

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

So we have recruited. We invested into more business development staff during the quarter. I suspect that there's going be a small increase in the cost associated with that. But it's really just finding the right people to reach out to the critical clients. The way we grow it's kind of in two ways, and I tried to explain that.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

There's the programmatic marketing related sales that we're supporting with the self serve checkout feature that we're working on. So that's really the smaller sales in all the markets where we'll have we can address independent use. The business development people are really focused in your strategic content, the larger customers, the major labels that in itself will drive use of the platform. So for example, where a new market for us or a market where we can expand would be into rock or rhythmic or urban music in The US. We have some presence there, but that's an area where we really want to target.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

And having the right business development people to address and reach out to those people is critical. We also think the investments that we're making into reporting and the really interesting analytics that you'll see within the platform will help drive sales there. We think there's a lot of things that we can add reasonably easily. And it's a matter of just trying to figure out what what those clients really need to see.

Analyst

So what proportion of sales and marketing is more like business dev versus trying to, like

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

That's a good question. I mean, business development is really, I would say, three different things. It's marketing, business development, and then sales. And mean, I think the we're probably evenly split in the investment between sales and and marketing.

Analyst

Or, like, if I could rephrase, how much is like, what proportion is dedicated, if I can say, to major labels versus independents? Or Like like

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

I said, it's it's probably, you know, half and half. Yeah.

Analyst

Okay. Yeah. Cap. Can you remind me how much was invested to build out meter total, like, in CapEx? Or

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

I don't know that number off the top of my head. I would guess it's around no. I don't I don't know. I don't wanna speculate on how much that was off the top. I I I can get that number to you.

Analyst

I guess I can reconcile myself.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

You'll see you'll see capital investments that you'll but it'll include a number of investments that have nothing to do with METR.

Analyst

Yeah.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

You know, METR certainly has not shown revenue to date that would justify its capital investment, at least not directly. The benefit of it, though, I think is more prospective. It provides support for Play MPE's relevance itself, so it will help in sales of Play MPE.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

It is a potentially disruptive product itself. So if we could do charting on a global basis, that would be a very significant, high margin business. But the landscape there is getting quite competitive. Apple even launched a free it's very rudimentary reporting service for it, but we're a small company. Mean, ours MTR provides a bit more and different information.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

But Apple's version is free, so there's a little bit more competitive landscape with METER. But it does help us with Playapy sales, and I still think that there's some potential to be disruptive in the marketplace for MTR.

Analyst

But the momentum, if I can say, isn't really quite there yet. Was meter built on what we thought would be useful or, like, based on customer request and, like, what, like, how much did customer were involved in just choosing at least the basic features to start off with?

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Oh, I mean, it's both based precisely on customer requests. Yeah. We listen to we don't build things without without customer feedback, without looking into what customers really want. And that's going to be true with reporting within Caster itself. We really need to know what's going to make a difference to their daily lives to grow their use of their value of Play MPE.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Same held true with METER. Our customers were customers that wanted this type of service that had no option for it. That is really our it's not really a competitor. I think MedioBase thinks we're a competitor. But I I MedioBase is the charting provider.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

They provide a very expensive review of AirPlay. It's very detailed. It's very expensive. But it provides detail that isn't really necessary for a lot of the smaller clients, that's what we built METR for. So you'll get in METR, in contrast to something like MediaBase, you'll get Airplays of your track and your track only, whatever you are subscribing to, whereas MediaBase provides airplays of the whole panel, the whole chart.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

We also provide a larger set of radio stations, so much broader coverage of The United States, for example, than MediaBase would. And this is in direct support of those smaller clients. But in the process of billing out meter, there are the competitive landscape has increased. Wasn't just us that identified this as target market or an addressable market. Our revenue is growing.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

It's small. But it also provides some really fantastic information that combines the promo part of Play MPE with its success at radio. So you'll be able to identify, like what I said earlier, if you release a song at 9PM on Tuesday, that seems to be the greatest success so far. It also shows it highlights that there's a very high correlation between downloads AirPlay, downloads from Play MPE and AirPlay, really high impact of secondary announcements and high impact of including metadata within your release in Play So there's all sorts of really interesting data points that we can leverage at least into sales of Play MPE. And that we we just created those this quarter.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

In fact, after the quarter, it was completed. But we're still working on on the data on that. But so it will help it should help Play MPE revenue.

Analyst

Thank you. Yeah. I guess I just have a hard time reconciling, like, total if I just circle back to your sales and marketing, like, total amount that was spent in, like, last four years versus, like, the incremental revenue that it generated. Like, I know things take time. I know, like, on the product development side, it takes time to develop things and sell it.

Analyst

But, like, I don't know. I feel it's hard to convince other investors to look into the story when it feels like there's a ton of costs that are being shoved in not shoved, but, like, invested in sales and marketing, but that there's not much incremental revenue that's being generated out of those.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

I mean, there's a certain amount of sales and marketing that is necessary to maintain revenue. But I think it's a fair comment. We haven't seen the growth that we have wanted. We have adjusted our investments there. The I mean, think your comment is it's one I feel myself, but we're trying to improve that.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

I think the analytics, the reporting features that we're working on in platform is something that it is new. We hope to channel that into, you know, a higher revenue growth. I mean, ultimately, you know, the proof will be in the pudding in the next, you know, little while about whether those investments will pay dividends. We'll we'll we'll make that assessment. We've engaged an outside consultant to take a critical look at our our strategy, and and we'll be receiving a a report later this year, this calendar year, and just to see if there's anything we're missing or different approaches or whether, you know, investments we should reduce investments for growth.

Analyst

I see. Is it on the whole business or just

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Yeah. It's on the whole it's holistic. Yeah.

Analyst

K. I see. Yeah. It just it feels like it's more like the the product is most often, like, the bottleneck and that it's always on the the hope is always based on the next couple iterations of the product.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Yeah. I mean Yeah. I think that's fair. We were we were a bit long winded in in addressing those product features. There's I mean, I don't want to bring up too much from the past, but there was a fair amount of technical debt in moving program languages.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

That's an investment that's required that we were behind on. So there's technical debt. But we also really built out the platform to be online for Universal. And those two things really were required to maintain our business. And they didn't do a tremendous impact on growth.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

And I think we were recently able to invest in the automated self checkout portion of the platform, which we believe will help us in that smaller sale in markets where we don't have a lot of independent usage. For example, there's a lot of markets where we have that cornerstone of content that drives use. So we have just take Portugal, for example. That's the one I've mentioned before, I think. But we have very strong active recipient use.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

We have a curated list for that. We don't have any independent sales in Portugal. Now, that's just one market. It's not a big market. So you don't want to invest in business development to go and attack that market, with the possible exception of the majors in that market.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

But with a self serve checkout, you can localize the website, local ads, you can hopefully programmatically sell to that. And that's true with a lot of different territories. So you'll see that in a lot of a variety of territories. So it's, again, platform investments that I mean, I think it's a fair comment that, that does seem to be the bottleneck on on a little bit of growth. Yeah.

Analyst

Thanks. That's all for me.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

Great. Thank you, Thomas. Doesn't look like there's any other raised hands, but there is one question in the q and a box, so I can read it out, Fred. You've been talking about revenue snowballing for at least five years now, yet performance remains stagnant, and there's no price support for shareholders. How do you explain this disconnect at this stage?

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Well, I think we've we've covered that with the our investments in the platform itself and this dev. I mean, we're gonna take a hard look at it. Snowballing or accelerated revenue growth is something that we're targeting. But if, you know, ultimately, if we can't do that, then, we'll have to find a different way to provide a return to our shareholders.

Rebecca Collins
Rebecca Collins
Operations Manager at Destiny Media

Okay. Great. I think that is all the questions for today.

Fred Vandenberg
Fred Vandenberg
CEO at Destiny Media

Thanks, everyone. I'll speak to you in the fall.

Analysts
    • Rebecca Collins
      Operations Manager at Destiny Media
    • Fred Vandenberg
      CEO at Destiny Media
    • Analyst