LiveOne Q1 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 12, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: LiveOne reported Q1 revenue of approximately $19.4 million and consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $4.3 million, while audio generated $18.6 million of revenue and $6.3 million of adjusted EBITDA. PodcastOne delivered record revenue of roughly $16.1 million and $1.6 million of adjusted EBITDA.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management highlighted accelerating B2B distribution, including new or expanding relationships with Netflix, Amazon, Paramount, AT&T, Samsung, LG and Vizio, plus a new four-year agreement with a major retailer. It believes these partnerships support a path to more than $250 million in annual revenue within three years, although this remains an aspiration rather than formal guidance.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company increased cash by $3.3 million, added $7 million to stockholders’ equity, eliminated $5 million of liabilities and repurchased $7 million of the planned $12 million in stock. Management said it intends to continue buying shares at current valuations and is also pursuing an accretive M&A transaction.
  • Neutral Sentiment: LiveOne is in discussions with 17 AI companies to license its audio and video archive, with potential pricing of $100 to $500 per hour, and expects initial monetization as soon as next quarter. These opportunities are still under negotiation and their ultimate financial contribution is uncertain.
  • Negative Sentiment: Management said Q1’s improved Slacker margins and EBITDA benefited from approximately $1.5 million of liability reductions and stock-for-services arrangements, meaning underlying margins may normalize. The company also issued shares at $7.50 per share for certain transactions, contributing to a higher share count and potential dilution.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
LiveOne Q1 2027
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

Skip to Participants
Operator

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to LiveOne's Fiscal Year 2027 First Quarter ended June 30, 2026 Financial Results and Business Update conference call. During today's call, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. Presenting on today's call is Rob Ellin, CEO and Chairman of LiveOne, and Craig Christensen, Interim CFO of LiveOne. 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 and 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 vary materially from those discussed on this call for a variety of reasons.

Operator

Please refer to the company'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 its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31st, 2026, and subsequent SEC filings. 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, August 12, 2026. Except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information after today's call.

Operator

I would like to highlight to all participants that this call is being recorded. The company will make it available to investors and media via webcast, and a replay will be available on its website in the Investor Relations section shortly following the conclusion of the call. Additionally, it is the property of the company, and any redistribution, transmission, or rebroadcast of this 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 LiveOne's CEO, Rob Ellin.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. This was one of the most important and strongest quarters in the history of LiveOne. We delivered $19.3 million in revenues and $18.6 million of audio revenues at a record $6.3 million of adjusted EBITDA. Our podcast delivered record revenues over $16.2 million and $1.6 million of adjusted EBITDA. But maybe just as importantly, we increased our cash position by $3.3 million, increased our stockholders' equity by $7 million, and eliminated $5 million of liabilities for the quarter. We have now completed $7 million of our $12 million of stock repurchase program and fully are prepared to continue to grow that and buy more and more stock at these low prices. We also acquired 150,000 shares of PodcastOne and paid off all of the junior debt at PodcastOne.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Our focus is simple: grow revenues, grow EBITDA, generate cash, strengthen the balance sheet, and create shareholder value. For the first time, I believe, we see a very clear path to the next level of scale. Our B2B pipeline is stronger than it ever has been. We now have partnership and opportunities with over $10 trillion worth of companies across the world. We have signed major retail agreements with a four-year agreement with one of the biggest retailers in the world. We are very close on a second retailer. For the first time ever, we have partnered with Netflix and their 700 million global members. Our relationships continue to grow across Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, AT&T, Samsung, LG, Vizio, and many of the most important, largest companies in the world.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We are also seeing very meaningful expansion with our existing partners, Amazon representing over $20 million, and Paramount has now passed and on its way to over $27 million in revenues. This continues to demonstrate the accelerating opportunity across our major global distribution partners. Based on the momentum we are seeing, we believe there is a clear path to over $250 million in revenues over the next three years. Importantly, this growth is happening against a dramatically leaner cost structure. We have cut our staff down from 350 people at a high to now around 80, and we are not just simply rebuilding revenues. We are building a much more profitable, scalable LiveOne with the potential for dramatically increasing EBITDA and cash flow. Our M&A pipeline is the strongest it is ever been with over $400 million of potential deals in the pipeline.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We are evaluating carefully acquisitions, mergers across our businesses while continuing to receive substantial inbound interest from strategic and financial buyers looking to acquire individual LiveOne subsidiaries, assets, or potentially the entire company. That gives us tremendous optionality. We can buy, merge, partner, or monetize assets, depending on which path creates the greatest value for our shareholders. PodcastOne is another critical part of our flywheel. We believe audio and video belong together. We are watching a transformative move in the industry, as you see Netflix enter in a very strong way into podcasting, and you see the likes of Fox buying up many podcast networks, as well as OpenAI paying 13.5x revenues for a podcast network.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

This is the second round of acquisitions where there was over $10 billion of them in the first round, and I fully expect there will be a larger scale acquisition mode happening in the overall industry. It is a very strong belief that you are going to see every streaming network, including the Apples, the Amazons, and the Alphabets of the world, or the YouTubes of the world, acquiring podcast networks. We have also now officially sold our podcast, "Barnum Town," to a major streaming partner, and we are hoping for a green light on that in the very near future. This adds to our PodcastOne IP of podcasts that can turn into television or films and dramatically increases our opportunity of generating substantial cash flow from these. AI adds another major layer across our audio and video content data and intellectual properties.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We have over 250,000 hours of video content and over 500,000 hours of audio content and growing. We see telltale signs that the LLMs are going to be buying up intellectual property content data at somewhere between $100 and $500 per hour on a non-exclusive basis. The most important message I want investors to take away from this, LiveOne flywheel is robust, it is working, and is accelerating. More partners create more distribution, more distribution creates bigger audiences, more audience creates more revenues, and more content creates more IP. The more IP creates more opportunities across streaming, television, AI licensing, commerce, and M&A. There is the valuation. The industry companies are trading at about 3.7x revenues, while LiveOne is trading at about 65% of revenues. We believe this represents an extraordinary valuation disconnect.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

As we execute, grow revenues, expand EBITDA, generate cash, and strengthen the balance sheet, we believe there is a significant opportunity to close that gap. After more than 30 years of building media and technology companies to over $10 billion worth of companies, I believe this is the strongest and most powerful collection of assets and opportunities I have ever assembled. I have been through this journey with many companies where stock has had its difficult times and then rebounds in a very extraordinary way. We watched this with Digital Turbine dropping to almost $40 million, and then five years later, trading to a $12 billion valuation. I believe LiveOne has today more assets, more revenue streams, and more ways to win. Now it comes down to final execution. The flywheel is accelerating, and we see a very strong sign of hitting over $100 million in revenues in the very near future.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

With that, I want to hand it off to Craig, our CFO, who has done an amazing job, and look forward to finalizing our call at the end. Thank you, Craig.

Craig Christensen
Craig Christensen
Interim CFO at LiveOne

Thanks, Rob. I will spend a few minutes just providing a brief overview of the results for our first quarter. Consolidated revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2026, was $19.4 million, with positive adjusted EBITDA of $4.3 million. Our audio division posted revenue for Q1 of $18.6 million and adjusted EBITDA of $6.3 million. The biggest driver of adjusted EBITDA was our Slacker business with stock for service deals that covered certain past liabilities as well as credit for future services. On a U.S. GAAP basis for the first quarter, LiveOne posted a consolidated net loss of $3.1 million or -$0.23 per basic and diluted share. This compares to net loss of $3.9 million or -$0.40 per basic and diluted share in the same quarter last year. At the operating level, our PodcastOne business reported record revenue $16.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1.6 million.

Craig Christensen
Craig Christensen
Interim CFO at LiveOne

Our Slacker business posted Q1 revenue of $2.5 million and adjusted EBITDA of $4.7 million. This was primarily driven by stock for service deals and the elimination of certain past liabilities. Overall, we see strong momentum in the first half of fiscal 2027, led by the continued growth of PodcastOne. As Rob mentioned, we have several strategic opportunities gaining traction, which we believe can support the continued growth and create long-term value. Rob, I'll turn it back over to you.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Just to finalize, we are well in the process of our next M&A transaction. It's been a few years since we've completed one. For anyone that knows me, they're usually super accretive, very much like PodcastOne. We acquired it doing $17 million in revenues and losing $5 million a year. It's now on a run rate to do well over $60 million this year as we finished off the quarter with almost what we started with five years ago when we acquired it, and now is very strong EBITDA. We are going to continue to buy back stock aggressively down at these low valuations. As a team, I couldn't be more proud of what they've accomplished this quarter to eliminate this kind of liabilities, create this kind of EBITDA, has really been special and really special to see what our team has done.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We continue to look at ways to increase each of those, and again, we'll continue to buy back stocks. I want to thank everyone for joining, thank our shareholders for the patience, and we look forward to a really exciting end of the year. Thank you.

Operator

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Brian, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. My questions will be around the B2B deals. I will get back in the queue. At what point do you expect AT&T to begin offering their plans to automotive manufacturers? Are there any manufacturers that AT&T is already offering LiveOne's content if you buy a car, and if so, which?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Yeah. We are under NDA on that, so we cannot give names at this point. But the answer is yes and now. We will have a hopefully very substantial update on that in the next 30-45 days, and really excited about that partnership. As Brian, you probably know, historically this company has done, and really before I was involved in it, has done most of their revenues through carriers, starting with Verizon to T-Mobile. Obviously AT&T being the biggest is really exciting for us to have this opportunity to grow with them.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Great. Similar question on smart TVs. You have three of the largest who is integrating your content. Are all three now selling TVs that consumers can buy with your content? If so, can you talk about any evidence of usage, success, subscriptions, anything like that?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Yeah. This is just the beginning of the beginning, but the answer is yes, across all three of them. The marketing strategies are just starting to come into place, and we will have a lot more clarity on that in the next 60-90 days. But really exciting. Not only is it exciting just to have the TVs, but obviously when you are talking about the likes of Vizio, you also have potential to move into Walmart. When you are talking about Samsung, you have the opportunity of moving into Android. Again, Samsung probably was the second largest partner in the history of the company with Slacker Radio and did hundreds of millions of dollars of revenues over almost a 20-year period with them. So really exciting, not only just what you can do in automobiles, but getting inside of these large, massive companies and building the relationships.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

As you know, Brian, once you are in the door and you have contractual relationships, you can really expand to other areas of the business as well. The distribution is well beyond just TVs that we see, and really exciting to have these opportunities. We have used very tiny numbers as you know. Something like a 0.5%-1% penetration and a conversion off of that, and just take all the numbers of each of these companies, combine them, and we just need a little tiny piece of that for the revenues to really ramp up. We expect that fourth quarter. As we have said throughout the year, it takes time as you put these in. People need to see them multiple times. They need to experience it. They got to see the branding. They got to build a relationship with it.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

But we see, again, at a very tiny percentage conversion with these partners, just a massive opportunity.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Thank you. I am going to slip one more in, then I will get back in the queue. You made a comment, Rob, that you have a B2B deal with one of the largest retailers in the world. You obviously are working with Amazon. Everyone knows that. But is that something new? It was one quick comment. I was not quite sure what to make of it, or am I drawing maybe a blank on another announcement you had?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

No. All I said is that it was a four-year contract. We cannot give names, as you know. No different than we originally had our Paramount deal. We did not talk about it for almost two years, and now it is well over $27 million in revenues. This could be a massive partnership. Shortly, we fully expect to be able to talk about it in detail.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Okay. Thanks. I'll get back in the queue.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Yeah. To add to that, Brian, I think you're going to see us add a head of partnerships in the retail area. You'll probably see the same thing in the carrier area. As we've now shrunk the team dramatically, you will see some add-on team members coming shortly, including a president of the company, as well as area heads and sales heads of B2B divisions are where we're growing. Carriers, auto, retailers, et cetera.

Operator

Your next question from the line of Barry Sine with Litchfield Hills Research. Barry, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Hey, good morning, gentlemen. I want to start off and continue on the topic of B2B partners. Rob, you mentioned Netflix at the beginning of the call, and obviously that's a big partner. Are you at liberty to expand on what you're doing with them? If I was a Netflix subscriber, what would I see from LiveOne? Would I just see podcasts or is it also music?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

No, you're just going to see podcasts to start. This is my humble opinion. I did a podcast on this, I think it was three months ago, and maybe for once I'll be right. I came out and said very clearly that I fully expect that every streaming network will move into audio. No different than cable and satellite did. There are still more channels on cable and satellite for Music Choice than there is anything else. I fully expect that you're going to see the likes of Netflix, Warner, Paramount, Hulu, Disney, every one of these streaming networks are going to add audio to their platforms, where they add it as a distributor or they acquire them. I see it as really intellectually smart for them to acquire them. You're seeing Netflix doing deals with iHeart. You saw Disney do a deal with iHeart.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

You see Sirius trying to buy iHeart. All this is coming in when you think about it. That audio streaming is charging the same price as Netflix is. Whether it's Spotify, Apple, they're basically almost the exact same price, except for the differences in audio, the music's already made. They don't have the risk of spending $10 billion, $20 billion producing content. As they try so hard every year to increase their ARPUs, it makes so much sense to me that a Netflix should have an audio network. Having an audio network will give them the ability to raise their ARPUs way more than they can raise them the dollar a year that they're doing today. I think the same thing on the audio side.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

I think you're going to see a roll-up happening where you're going to see every streaming platform, including Apple, Amazon, who already have theirs, and YouTube, those have a music network, but they're going to go harder into podcasting. Then you're going to see the other streaming platforms that are competing with them, are going to have to have an audio platform. It's going to be so important to them, and I think you'll see acquisitions happening in the space quickly.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Okay, my second question is around M&A specifically. You said you're close on a deal and you've talked about criteria where you gave one is the deal being accretive. Where are you shopping? Are you shopping only in podcasting? I know Kit is always looking for-

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

No-

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

perhaps to pick up companies.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

No.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Or in LiveOne?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

No. We brought in Steve Lehman. Steve is Vice Chairman of LiveOne, and Steve's background is rolling up audio. He's done some video as well, but rolling up audio as a whole. There's massive opportunities there, and there's a fractured market. You're either big or you're small and kind of left out there. We're looking at both. From the M&A side is we fully expect another acquisition that'll be similar to Slacker or similar to PodcastOne, where we acquire it extremely cheaply. It fits into our flywheel, and it picks up substantial EBITDA for us and is extremely accretive. At the same time, we're looking at big chess moves that could be anything from a buy to a sell. The inbound calls are coming in on a regular basis.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

You guys are all watching as companies, again, podcast networks were bought up at 5-15 times revenues five years ago when the industry was a $600 million industry. Now it's a $25 billion industry and growing. As video's been added, it's going to continue to grow. As that happens, I think you're going to see very aggressive moves in the media space. You've started to see for the first time in seven years, media stocks really moving. Media stocks have had just a miserable seven years. Now you see Starz stock has gone to 3x, and iHeartMedia stock was up 6.5x, 7x, now it's still up 5x. Same thing with Lionsgate. All of a sudden, you're waking up, and part of that is because people are realizing how valuable the data is.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

That data may not just be valuable to other content partners. It could be enormously value to the AI models. As you're figuring out human behavior, human movement, so on, you're going to need a substantial amount of content to keep feeding these LLMs and continue to feed them quickly. They're not going to be able to get content from the majors. You just saw the settlement that Anthropic just did. They paid a staggering $1.2 billion just to the book industry for stealing some books. You imagine what's going to happen and how long it's going to take to settle the film, music, television stuff that has been effectively taken, whether intentionally or not, by the AI models, that is now all blocked. I think we're going to have enormous value in the content we have, which content is data.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

When you have data, it gives just huge value to these AI models.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Just to follow up on that, where are you in the process of monetizing for AI licensing? Have you looked at doing that via tokenization, which would make the content much easier to slice and dice and price and sell?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Well, here's what I would tell you. What's really exciting is, as of this morning, my team just sent me a message. We're in discussions with 17 AI businesses and growing. All of them looking at somewhere between $100 and $500 an hour for content. We're very smartly and very carefully working with our talent. Because they're a partner in that. If it's Dr. Phil or it's Adam Carolla, or it's any one of them, we're working with that content. The same with our music content, which we own, we still have to work with our music partners to monetize that. We couldn't be more excited about the opportunity.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Just to give you color, I personally invested in a company, just a couple of dollars, but I saw a friend of mine who started a company, and literally, he has gotten $17 million of contracts up front just to literally give content from security guards, cleaning people washing dishes, washing laundry. If you are going to build robotics and you are going to build AI, they are going to need a staggering amount of content to keep feeding the system, to keep it alive. We have real content. What I am talking about is only for the practice models. Imagine it is worth $100-$500 an hour from practice models. What is this content worth when it really goes to market where it is exclusive deals to someone? It could be multiples of that.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We see a great sign in that, and we fully expect to start to monetize it in the next quarter.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Great. Lots of good info. Thanks, Rob.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Thanks, Barry. Appreciate it.

Operator

A reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. Your next question from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners. Brian, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Great. Thanks. A few follow-ups. The first one relates to Netflix. Are they paying annual fees for the content or based on usage?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We are not at liberty to give what the model is today, but if you read these stories of Bill Simmons and you read the stories with Disney yesterday, you can get a little bit of an idea that some of it is going to be free and is going to be ad-driven and traffic-driven, and some of it is going to be paid for. It depends on which content it is. You can be sure that you are not going to see us give the likes of a major talent to them without monetizing it. I can just tell you that our video content is probably now 30% of our revenues. I could not give you an exact number of it, but it was zero when I bought this company.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Video content is just exploding, and there was a great CNBC interview this morning that literally walked through how much money is being monetized in video and what kind of revenues are being driven in video. I just see great telltale signs that the TAM of our business is going to explode over the next three years.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Great. I have two numbers questions. The gross margin has drastically improved. Craig, you made some comments that I wasn't quite sure how to decipher, but when I back into the gross margin of non-PodcastOne, you're at 63%. Three quarters ago, you were in the 20s for several quarters. Is there any non-recurring benefits in there? If so, can you quantify them? Otherwise, is this sustainable?

Craig Christensen
Craig Christensen
Interim CFO at LiveOne

Yeah, Brian, you're right. There was some one-time pickups in Q1 in Slacker. As I mentioned in my remarks, that we had an elimination of some liabilities. It was about $1.5 million. So that gets you back to a more normal margin on a GAAP basis. But then on top of that, we had some stock for service deals, and that's what drove the adjusted EBITDA. Yeah, there are one-time pickups there. We expect the margin to kind of sustain back to normal unless we can continue to drive those stock for service deals.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Yes. That was going to be my next question. We saw the share count jump significantly in the three months. Is that related to that stock comp? How should we think about maybe stock comp and the share count for the remainder of the year?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

I think we answered that. We've basically given that number, which was around $15 million. It's $7.50 a share. We picked up some great partners with that, Brian, that we've announced, and they've announced. Including a fund that now is part of BMI that owns 78% of the company now. So it's been great for us. Not only is it great from a balance sheet standpoint, but it also is great from having real long-term deals with the music industry. Which we haven't had in the eight years since we acquired it because of the payables that existed on the books previously. We'll continue to do some deals at $7.50 a share or better. I fully expect that there'll be more of those as part of that $15 million over the next 60-90 days.

Brian Kinstlinger
Brian Kinstlinger
Analyst at Alliance Global Partners

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question from the line of Barry Sine with Litchfield Hills Research. Barry, your line is open. You may now go ahead.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Hey, hello again. Just as a follow-up on that, on the music partners, the record labels. Now that you've kind of cleaned that up, you've brought some in as shareholders, as partners. In the past, Rob, you've talked about going global, and many of your B2B partners, like a Netflix, do have global businesses. I know you're not yet licensing music to them, just podcasts. But can you talk about the prospects for taking the music part of the business global and adding global licenses so you're not just in North America?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

I think the answer is, the minute we have our first partner that is a global partner that needs this across the board will be the minute we go sit down and start negotiating. We're in a completely different position than we've been in the last eight years, right? We've had these massive payables from the acquisition of Slacker in the beginning. Now that that's strengthened and cleaned up, and so many of the music partners, we've signed just about every one of them now. We got a couple left to do over the next, as I said, 30-90 days. But if we can get that cleaned up, we'll certainly be exploring that and looking at that opportunity. Also podcasting is exploding around the world too. So there's a real opportunity with it globally as well to expand that.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

My last question, you threw out a number that's a pretty significant aspirational number of $250 million in revenue three years out. I know that's not guidance, but could you flesh out that vision a little bit more? What does that look like in terms of balance between podcasting, between B2B deals, and then financially, what does that look like from an EBITDA standpoint? What's the vision on this company with that $250 million of revenue three years out?

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Yeah, I think we want to get to adjusted EBITDA like we're doing now. We've taken our cost structure down. As you know, if COVID didn't hit, we were on our way to $250 million six years ago. If Tesla didn't change the contract on us, we were on our way to $250 million a year ago. A year and four months ago. So we're back on track now. We're highly confident. When you talk about $10 trillion worth of companies that we're in partnerships with, we just got to keep growing them. Paramount could grow. It's grown from 2 million to over 27 million. Amazon's growing, literally just starting off as a test, is now grown to 20 million. We're now in position with 10, 12, 14 partners. They're all multi-billion to trillion-dollar companies, and we just got to execute.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We got to execute, we got to deliver, we got to deliver for them, and we got to continue to sign more and more of those partnerships. Then it's just a numbers game. The bigger their distribution partners are, the more traffic we're going to get, the more revenues we're going to drive. When you go onto a Netflix as an example, you put a couple of shows on the start, you got 700 million subscribers around the world. I can't tell you exactly what that number's going to be day one, but there's going to be some numbers. So that's just the beginning. When you control that environment, when we go onto Netflix, no different than we're on YouTube or on Spotify, whatever advertising is played during that show, we get the revenues from. Then there could be subscription revenues.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Our subscription revenues all of a sudden have ramped up with one of our big podcasters. We are starting to be a real number every month. I just see that as just a big opportunity for us to grow. I think Netflix is missing an audio network. I think Walmart is missing an audio network. I think Costco is missing an audio network. I think that Facebook is missing an audio network. I think Microsoft is missing an audio network. I think every carrier is missing one. Everyone is coming back. AI is running the world. Everybody is scared. Everybody is infringing on each other's businesses, and it is so critical right now for people to own their own data. There is nothing that is used more than audio content, no matter what. More than video, there is always going to be audio.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

There is still going to be two hours a day in a car. There is going to be usage on mobile. It is hard to watch as much on a mobile device as you are going to listen on a mobile device. I think we are right in the sweet spot, and I think with Craig's help and a new President at the company, and a couple of more B2B people, $250 million is very achievable in the next three years.

Barry Sine
Barry Sine
Analyst at Litchfield Hills Research

Great. Thank you.

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Rob Ellin for closing remarks.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

Well, I think I said everything today. Very humbly, we are humbled by where our stock is today. We are pretty shocked because media has had some life to it. It looked like the stock was going to run last quarter, had a little run up to seven, couldn't break those levels. We are going to keep buying back stock. We are going to keep our foot on the pedal. We are going to continue to clean the balance sheet until we get rid of any of the outstanding issues that are out there. We are going to continue to build massive, real partnerships with billion to trillion-dollar companies. Again, I just want to thank everyone for their patience. We are right there next to you. We will be buying stock as soon as the restriction is off, soon as we get legal restriction off, which is any day now.

Rob Ellin
Rob Ellin
CEO and Chairman at LiveOne

We will continue to buy more stock. I just couldn't be more proud of my team and what we got accomplished in this year. Just in this quarter is just amazing to see $7 million added in net equity, $3 million of extra cash. This is a telltale sign of where we are going, and we are going to continue to grow these things. Thank you everyone, and we look forward to talking to you soon with the next update.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Rob Ellin
      Rob Ellin
      CEO and Chairman
    • Craig Christensen
      Craig Christensen
      Interim CFO
Analysts
Powered by Quartr