PodcastOne
Ad sales and monetisation · Networks and production companies
PodcastOne is the leading advertiser-supported, on-demand digital audio network
Website: www.podcastone.com
Symbol: NASDAQ:PODC
About PodcastOne
PodcastOne (NASDAQ: PODC) is a leading podcast platform that provides creators and advertisers with a comprehensive 360-degree solution in sales, marketing, public relations, production, and distribution. PodcastOne has surpassed 3.9 billion total downloads with a community of 200 top podcasters, including Adam Carolla, Kaitlyn Bristowe, Jordan Harbinger, LadyGang, A&E's Cold Case Files, and Varnamtown. PodcastOne has built a distribution network reaching over 1 billion monthly impressions across all channels, including YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and iHeartRadio. PodcastOne is also the parent company of PodcastOne Pro which offers fully customizable production packages for brands, professionals, or hobbyists. For more information, visit www.podcastone.com and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X at @podcastone.
Latest news
- Nov 6: PodcastOne released "final guidance" with expectations of what it will report in its financials for the first half of the year (its financial year starts on 1 April). It's promoting that it owns 750,000 hours of content, "primed for monetization through AI licensing, including LLMs, agentic and generative AI, and frontier models".
- Nov 4: A member of the Board of Directors of PodcastOne, Ramin Arani announced his resignation, for personal reasons, on Oct 27. Arani, a Fidelity Investments portfolio manager, was on all three financial committees within the company. His resignation comes a day after the interim Chief Financial Officer Craig Christensen announced that he was leaving the company. Christensen becomes PodcastOne's third finance chief to have left the company in less than two years. From the outside, the timing looks difficult - recent filings suggested "substantial doubt" that the company can continue trading beyond July 2027, and both people leave at a time when PodcastOne is apparently attracting "multiple" potential buyers.
- Oct 30: Is PodcastOne close to being acquired? The company says it has had "multiple" people interested in buying the company; and has formed a special committee, and retained a financial advisor, to examine them. This is after one of its shareholders sent PodcastOne a letter telling them to retain an investment bank or strategic advisor, saying that its shares were undervalued. The company's shares are up around 50% on the news, and are currently around $2.59; in May they were trading at over $5, though.
- Oct 27: Exclusive: Podcast hosting company Spreaker is, we believe, enabling wholesale copyright theft for podcasts - letting people copy other, well-known shows, host copies of them, and sell ads in the stolen audio. We discovered how easy it is to copy someone else's show on Spreaker; saw how few checks the company does to enable monetisation; and found that there are more than 1,700 shows duplicated on Spreaker at the moment, from publishers like PodcastOne, Vox Media, Goalhanger and SiriusXM. We have all the details in a special report.
- Sep 22: Last week, LiveOne bought back more than $4m of shares in its spinoff business PodcastOne. PodcastOne went public in Sep 2023, after separating from LiveOne in Dec 2022. LiveOne has reduced its workforce to 80 employees from 350, partially after Tesla stopped giving free access to LiveOne's radio services as part of its Premium Connectivity solution. The release suggests that PodcastOne could consolidate once more into LiveOne (which could save $3mn a year).
Data credits: Podnews newsletter