PodcastOne, Inc. (PODC) Q4 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to PodcastOne's fiscal fourth quarter and full year ended March 31st, 2026, financial results and business update conference call. During today's call, all participants will be in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be opened for questions. Presenting on today's call are Kit Gray, President and Founder of PodcastOne, and Craig Christensen, Interim Chief Financial Officer. Some of the statements made on today's call are forward-looking and based on current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions that involve various risks and uncertainties. Please refer to the company's filings with the SEC for information about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. You'll find reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures in the company's earnings release, which is posted on its investor relations website. I would now like to turn the call over to PodcastOne's president, Kit Gray.

Welcome to our fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2026 earnings call. As a reminder, our fiscal year begins on April 1st. This quarter marked a strong finish to fiscal 2026 and reflected the continued execution of our strategy to grow podcasts through premium content, strategic talent partnerships, diversified monetization, and technology-driven operations. Throughout the year, we strengthened our position as one of the leading podcast publishers in the industry while expanding our network with established creator brands, developing original content, and driving meaningful growth across our advertising platform. PodcastOne continues to distinguish itself as the leading pure-play podcasting platform on the public markets through a vertically integrated model that combines talent development, content creation, distribution, analytics, monetization, and operational efficiencies, all supported by our AI-powered infrastructure. Our AI toolkit continues to enhance performance across every aspect of the business. Flightpath drives predictive profitability. Boostr scales advertising management and proposal recommendations. Adobe Audition ensures best-in-class audio quality. AudEngine supports discoverability through SEO and insights. Magellan AI powers advertising attribution, and OpusClip converts long-form video into short-form content that fuels audience growth across platforms. Our team constantly uses AI-based search components to discover new talent, match trending topics to specific content, and more. These tools directly support how we grow shows, monetize audiences, and operate more efficiently at scale. Throughout the quarter, we continued expanding and strengthening our content portfolio through new talent partnerships, creator renewals, and original content development. We added several established creator-led podcasts to the PodcastOne network, including The Wellness Cafe, No Filter with Zack Peter, and The Michelle Collins Show. We also continued investing in original content with the development and launch of It's Okay, We're All Gonna Die with Nurse Julie, demonstrating our ability to identify emerging talent and create new intellectual property within the PodcastOne ecosystem. Across our network, PodcastOne creators continued to attract high-profile guests, including Mel Robbins on Off the Vine, Jerry Seinfeld on The Adam Carolla Show, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on The Adam Carolla Show, Meredith Marks on Let Me Save You 25 Years, and Morgan Stewart on Yestergays. These appearances demonstrate the reach, relevance, and influence of PodcastOne programming across multiple audience segments. During the quarter, Podtrac ranked PodcastOne as the seventh largest podcast publisher in the U.S., highlighting continued audience growth and the increasing scale of our platform. Programmatic advertising revenue more than doubled compared to the same January through March period of the prior year, reflecting growing advertiser demand for premium podcast inventory and the continued success of our technology-enabled advertising solutions. This growth demonstrates the effectiveness of our investment in dynamic ad insertion, inventory expansion, audience targeting, and automated buying capabilities. Craig, back to you for our financial results.

Thank you, Kit. As a reminder, our fiscal year began on April 1st, 2025, and ended on March 31st, 2026. Revenue in our fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 was $15.7 million. Operating loss in the fourth quarter was $460,000, compared to an operating loss of $1.8 million in the same quarter a year ago. This improvement was driven primarily by higher advertising revenue and operational efficiencies across production and distribution. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $460,000, or negative $0.02 per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss of $1.8 million, or negative $0.09 per share, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $1.9 million, compared to $888,000 in the same year-ago quarter, driven by revenue growth and contribution margin improvement. We ended the quarter with $3.5 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt on the balance sheet. For the full year 2026, revenue increased 18% to $61.7 million, compared to $52.1 million in fiscal year 2025. Operating loss for fiscal year 2026 was $2.6 million, compared to an operating loss of $6.4 million in fiscal year 2025. This improvement was primarily driven by revenue growth, margin improvement, and disciplined cost management. Net loss in fiscal year 2026 was $2.6 million, or negative $0.10 per basic and diluted share, compared to a net loss of $6.5 million, or negative $0.26 per share, in fiscal year 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal year 2026 was a positive $6.3 million, compared to adjusted EBITDA of negative $0.5 million in fiscal year 2025. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Kit.

Thanks, Craig. Fiscal 2026 was a transformational year for PodcastOne. We expanded our network with established creator brands, renewed many of our most successful long-term partnerships, developed original content, strengthened our monetization platform, and increased our industry standing among the largest podcast publishers in the country. As we look ahead, we remain encouraged by the broader trends shaping the podcast industry. Recent research shows total podcast listening time has increased approximately 386% since 2016 and now exceeds 800 million listening hours per week. The continued growth of audience engagement, video podcasting, and advertiser adoption reinforces our belief that podcasting remains one of the most compelling and fastest-growing segments of digital media. Under Steve Lehman's leadership, we continue evaluating opportunities that can strengthen our platform, expand our creator offerings, and enhance long-term shareholder value. As we enter fiscal 2027, we remain focused on expanding our content portfolio, enhancing monetization opportunities for creators and advertisers, growing our audience reach, and continuing to build durable value across the PodcastOne ecosystem. With that, we'll now open the line for questions.

Your first question comes from the line of Sean McGowan with Roth Capital Partners.

Thanks. Kit, regarding the Podtrac number — you and I have talked about this quite a bit over the last couple of years. Some of those numbers seem to move around in terms of audience size and how it's classified. How should we think about the move to number seven in terms of real growth versus consolidation or other factors among companies ranked higher?

Podtrac is an interesting measure of success for comparing yourself to others, just like all rankers. There's cyclicality to it — sports networks may be coming off of football, and summertime is typically lighter for sports. It's hard to tell exactly where the movement is really coming from. I look at it as exciting for us in terms of our presence in the podcasting world. As we continue to grow up the ranks, that's a good signal to talent when we're going out to acquire them, and it's a good signal to advertisers. But at the end of the day, that's not where we're paid. What matters is: are the shows growing, are we getting our CPMs higher, are we getting our fill rates higher? That's how we really look at the business.

What are some other metrics you use internally to measure how you're doing relative to the industry?

Podtrac is a good reference for the industry, though it doesn't have all podcasts or networks and is still finding its way on the video and social media side. Internally, what I look at is the blocking and tackling on our own shows: what are the sellout rates, can we get CPMs up, is the show growing, are we marketing it the right way, are we getting shows onto other podcasts to grow? Every two weeks we go through all our shows as a team and look at how they're doing on the marketing side. As new tools pop up — Podroll, new video techniques, social media approaches — we're evaluating how every show on our network can use those.

Regarding using stock as compensation for talent — what should we expect for non-employee stock-based compensation going forward?

The partners that have done those types of deals are seeing great value — it's something unique that no one else can really offer. Those who jumped on early have reaped the reward, especially as the stock has gone up the last three or four months. We see all of the current ones continuing, and I believe you're going to see a lot more jumping in over the next 12 to 24 months because we now have the case studies of it working.

This is a game changer. What you always want is your talent to get behind your company. When you have big social media stars with big audiences rowing in the same direction, it's a great help to building the network and the audience. It gives us a huge leg up when negotiating with talent — we can offer them a pretty liquid currency now, and if the stock has a big run, they'll make additional money while also creating enormous liquidity for the company. Kit and I have been working on this for the better part of five years. As we head toward $100 million in revenues, there's going to be more and more talent that wants to join. When you see guys like Dr. Phil join the platform with equity, it's a great indication of how that can really be a game changer in locking down talent.

Just to clarify — for non-employee stock-based compensation, are all of those PodcastOne shares, or are there any LVO shares as well?

We've used both in the past, but right now it's all PodcastOne.

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

On the fiscal 2027 guidance, could you break it down in terms of what is going to be organic growth driven versus acquisitions of new talent?

That's a little fluid in terms of where exactly it's going to land. We have three or four really exciting M&A opportunities, and we know some of them will close though we don't know which ones yet. We also have some big shows and tech things in the works. What I can tell you is that we're seeing good growth already as we charge through Q1 of this year — good things on the sales side, organic growth driven by the medium, continued expansion of programmatic, and the world embracing video, audio, and social media together. There are also exciting AI content licensing opportunities. It's going to be a blend of all those things to get us to where we need to be.

Just to clarify — that guidance does not include acquisitions of companies; it's acquisitions of talent. We probably add one to two new pieces of talent every month and added roughly 20 last year. On the M&A side, we're talking to both small and bigger podcast companies in the media space, as well as some tech opportunities. The talent pipeline is as strong as it's ever been.

On M&A of platforms — are you seeing robust opportunities at a rational cost, or similar conditions to last year?

There are a lot of smaller networks out there — too small for the big guys to gobble up. It's a great opportunity for us to pick up one, two, or three of these and quickly get to over $100 million. We're very excited about what is going to happen very shortly with accretive add-on acquisitions. The industry is also getting rolled up again for the first time in five years — OpenAI paid 13.5 times revenues for a podcast network, Fox bought Vox and other major networks at huge multiples. Those bigger networks are getting taken off the table, which puts us in the sweet spot. This is probably the most robust lineup of smaller acquisitions we've seen in the last five to seven years.

On the advertising environment — it sounds pretty robust despite the economic backdrop. Do you think that will persist?

Everything is pointing towards good things on the podcasting front. Brands are seeing great results and have the digital attribution tools to see exactly what shows are working and what demographics are working for them. Where we differentiate is that we don't just sell spots and dots. The real value is buying into the communities we offer and making sure campaigns are done the right way. That's what allows us to charge premium CPMs — actually getting talent to execute what the brands need in a way that fits naturally into their community. The talent that has been with us for seven, eight, nine years keeps validating that approach, and ad agencies and brands are increasingly going back to the ones they trust with proven track records.

Can you provide an update on the Amazon relationship with R19?

The Amazon relationship has been a great one. The efficiencies of working with their technology have been tremendous, and the connection to their sales platform has really hit its stride after a slightly bumpy start in terms of getting set up and having their team package our programming into their offerings. We're looking at sellout percentages and CPMs almost daily, and they're all going in the right direction. If we can acquire some of the shows and networks we're talking about, it will keep moving us up on the next tier of the minimum guarantee. We're really excited about where that is right now.

Your next question comes from the line of Barry Sine with Litchfield Hills Research.

How many shows did you have in the March quarter? Where are you now? And how is the Dr. Phil Show going?

The exact number at quarter-end is in the 185 to 200 show range, give or take. The podcasts that remain atop the world for us are Adam Carolla, Jordan Harbinger, and the A&E properties — those remain our top dogs, and Stassi has been doing really great as well. On Dr. Phil — he's got two really good shows: The Dr. Phil Podcast, which he does several times a week, and the Mystery and Murder show. They fit well into the network. The Dr. Phil show fits in our lifestyle and male network, and the Mystery and Murder show fits well when we go out and sell the crime space. He's in big demand, and Phil has been amazing. We're really happy with that relationship.

On Podtrac — what percentage of views do they pick up, and how might we adjust the numbers upward? In the past you've mentioned YouTube is the largest source at about 22% of viewing and they don't capture that.

Those data points are still directionally correct. Podtrac is in constant development — they're testing ways to include YouTube, Rumble, and social reach across LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and Instagram. That number is going to get quite large once they do. The challenge is that it doesn't correlate from impression to impression in terms of sales. There are also shows like A&E Cold Case Files that are not on YouTube at all because they're on A&E, and crime shows with a lot of research and production behind them that you can't just add video to. Every show is different. At the end of the day, it comes down to internal metrics — sellout rates, increased CPMs, growth of marketing, and the backlog of content to monetize. Podtrac is just doing the best it can and continuing to evolve.

On the competitive environment — are the bigger publishers above you getting more or less aggressive in going after talent? And what is your advantage against the smaller publishers below you?

iHeart has their own financial issues they're working through, and while they talk about strong podcast growth on their earnings calls, that's probably picking up for a lot of the lagging verticals in their world. They're a great place for us to go and win content from. If you look at all the shows they have, it's almost impossible to manage all of those the right way — and when we talk to podcasters who are with them, they really respond to the attention we provide, the ability to see their numbers, and the ability to run their business based on that data. For the smaller networks below us, it's the same story — the hand-holding, the marketing, the talent booking, the hosting, the sales team. But we can also offer scale: 25 to 30 million downloads a month, genre packaging, access to other podcasts in our network to help them grow. We like to attack both the bigger ones and the smaller ones by knowing what we do best.

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

Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate your time today. It's been a tremendous Q4 and year. We learned a lot, we continued to grow, and we made some great relationships. It's been a thrill to get PodcastOne's stock heading in the right direction. We feel really good about where we are and the huge upside ahead. We're a great value play, a great growth play, a great company in a great medium, and we're really excited about the next year and what we're going to do with PodcastOne and the industry. Thank you for following us, listening to our podcast, and understanding our medium. I look forward to talking to you throughout the year and updating you as we continue to grow. Thank you so much and have a great day.

Just one last thing — LiveOne will continue to buy back a substantial amount of PodcastOne stock every quarter. We are extraordinarily proud of Kit and the team. If the stock continues to trade way below industry levels, we'll just keep buying back as much stock as we can. We'll start again next week. Thank you, everyone.

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