Audioboom Group (LSE:BOOM) — Q3 2024 Update

0:01 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the AUDIOBOOM GROUP PLC investor presentation. Throughout this recorded presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time via the q and a tab just situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Please just simply type in your questions and press send. The company may not be in a position to answer every question it receives during the meeting itself. However, the company can review all questions submitted today, and we'll publish those responses where it is appropriate to do so. And before we begin, we would just like to submit the following poll. And if you would give that your kind attention, I'm sure the company would be most grateful. And I would now like to hand you over to the executive management team from AUDIOBOOM. Stuart, good afternoon, sir. Thanks so much, Jake. Hello, everyone. It's it's really great to be with you today to talk about really what was a a fantastic quarter for AUDIOBOOM.

0:52 I I hope you all agree. We'll get into that into some more detail

0:57 very, very shortly. First of all, as Jake said, get those questions in. We'll have some time at the end for that. We've got about forty five minutes, I think, here today, so we'll do as many questions towards the end of the the presentation as we can. So usual format today, for those of you that are new to the business, we'll do a quick look at the industry and the business model, then we'll dive into those q three results, talk to you about those in more detail, and then take a a look at, you know, our our future focus and and and what's to come. But, yeah, for those of you that are new to the to the business, welcome. My name is Stuart Last. I'm the chief executive officer. I've been the CEO of AUDIOBOOM for just around five years now, but I've been with the company for ten years launching the business here in New York back in 2015.

1:46 And before that, I was at the BBC running digital audio. So more than a decade deep in podcasting. I love the medium. I love audio. I'm just really happy to to be driving this business forward. Hi, everyone. I'm Brett Clark, chief exec sorry, chief executive officer, chief financial officer here at AUDIOBOOM. I've been here for six and a half years, since March 2018. Based in London, chartered accountant, mainly focused on media organizations. Previously worked at Brave Bison, News UK before joining AUDIOBOOM in March 2018. I'll be back a little bit later on to take you through a few financial slides. But until then, back to you yesterday.

2:31 Thank you, Brad. So what are we talking about today? Well, I think the first thing, the first biggest part of this story is just strong revenue and EBITDA growth during q three. The model is in full flow, and you're seeing that coming through on on on the revenue and the EBITDA side of things. EBITDA significantly ahead of the the previous market expectation of of $1,300,000 for the full year. So we've seen an analyst upgrade there to $2,500,000, and we'll talk more about that across the presentation. What's driving that EBITDA? Well, it's gross margin improvement through a real focus on the quality revenue lines, and you'll see that theme running throughout this presentation. We are really are focused on those those higher margin revenue lines, particularly showcase our ad product, our ad marketplace, which is really booming at this point.

3:22 We're also reducing our minimum revenue guarantee obligations through contract restructuring. We have a very stable OpEx base that Brad will will walk you through. All of that is providing

3:33 and starting to deliver a gearing of EBITDA. And we have an exciting q four ahead of us, the sports seasons, the holiday seasons, and a further boost for by the US election. So let's get into all of that and and kicking things off really with a a look at the the podcast market as it is and and our business model for anyone that is new to the company. So this is what AUDIOBOOM does. Right? We we have a a very special place and a very important place in the podcast ecosystem. Our platform sits at the heart of podcasting. And what it does is it connects creators and their content with audience and with advertisers. And without a platform like AUDIOBOOM in the middle providing that technology and and that ease of use, there is no value in in in podcasting.

4:20 So we partner with independent creators, independent podcasters. They distribute all of their content through AUDIOBOOM. It's very efficient one click distribution out to all of those listening apps like Spotify, YouTube, Pandora, Apple Podcasts. Everywhere where there is audience, AUDIOBOOM is delivering that content, helping those creators grow their audience. And then we bring in advertisers to monetize that audience. So we bring them in in two different ways. We bring them in for live host endorsements that the creator reads the the the the sponsorship or the advertising messages, And then we use our marketplace show showcase to dynamically insert to deliver live in real time advertising as well, very targeted to to to the audience. So joining those three elements together, AUDIOBOOM's at the heart of it. We create real value, and we've done this now for the past ten years. We do it very efficiently, and we we do it very well. And you can see that from our our results over the the the past few years. Our model works. It delivers growth.

5:26 Over the past seven years, it's delivered 44.1% CAGR, and that equates to around 1,200 growth to our revenue since 2017. So this is a model that we are starting to prove and have proven over the the last seven years. The model really does work. We've outpaced our competitors. We've outpaced industry growth significantly across that that time. We broke even in 2021, and we've delivered EBITDA profit in three of the last four years. So, again, we are showing that that model that we've created is is working. And we think there's a fantastic future opportunity here as well. Podcasting is a very fast growing medium projected to grow an average of 22% over the the coming six years. So we can see what that opportunity lot looks like.

6:15 If we keep pace with the wider industry, there's a $260,000,000 revenue opportunity here by 2030. So we have outperformed the market to this point, and keeping pace with industry growth over the coming years provides significant revenue opportunity. And, obviously, being a shareholder of AUDIOBOOM is a fantastic way to be exposed to the structural growth that is happening in podcasting globally at the moment. And this work that AUDIOBOOM has done has positioned us as the fifth largest publisher in The US. This is a a chart here that I am just super proud of. I think the team here have done an incredible job amongst some strong competition to position us as the fifth largest podcast publisher in The US. You can see the big names there on the left hand side. This is the Edison Research ranker. There is also a Triton Digital podcast ranker. Again, we sit fifth in that Triton Digital ranker, also of the top podcast networks in The US. But we also have a global footprint.

7:14 We're the second largest publisher in The UK, fifth largest in Australia, Canada with fourth, New Zealand with second, Latin America, ninth. So we have a global footprint, global growth, global revenue, and that's all coming together as you'll see in the q three results.

7:33 So let's dive into that q three performance and and and take a look here. I'll break each of these down in a little more detail. You probably know the headline numbers, but we'll go through those and give you some more information as we do. So first off, eighteen point eight million dollars of revenue in q three twenty twenty four. Really strong performance here, up 34% year on year. The growth is significantly ahead of of industry projections. Again, you've seen the industry projection projection numbers earlier, and we continue to outpace our competitors and grow faster than the rest of the industry and grab that market share. This was the fourth successive quarter of of year on year revenue growth following that ad market recession around, you know, late twenty twenty two and and early twenty twenty three. We've rebounded from that. We're moving on past that ad market recession, and we've delivered a great revenue number here.

8:28 Still some upside to come as the the industry and the ad market recovers from that ad market recession. 10 to 15% pricing upside, I think, is is is still in there. So we have still some way to to go to really get back to a healthy ad market, but I think we're doing a great job of of of proving ourselves as we come out of that market recession. That $18,800,000 of of revenue in the quarter enabled us to deliver 1,000,000 of, of adjusted EBITDA during q three. So that's a significant jump on the same quarter last year, a $3,000,000 increase in adjusted EBITDA versus a loss of 2,000,000 loss in q three of last year. So really, moving forward when we see that higher revenue and the other parts of the the business model, the gross margin improvement, the fixed, you know, OpEx there, that's gearing that EBITDA and allowed us to deliver that that $1,000,000.

9:24 As you know, year to date, that's a $1,300,000 EBITDA. So, again, trading significantly ahead of the previous market expectation that led our broker today to increase that market expectation up to 2,500,000 for the year. As you as we go through this presentation, I think you'll see that we are kind of brimming with confidence here, and and we do feel that we will be able to outperform that new number that's in the market and go beyond that $2,500,000 of of adjusted EBITDA for for the year. And then cash remains healthy, $3,300,000 in the bank at the end of September. That's a marginal decline from 3,500,000 a quarter earlier. I think the key kind of thing to to understand here is that during that period, we paid a $1,000,000 advance to one of our key creators. That was an obligation in the contract with that with that creator.

10:21 So a 1,000,000 advance was paid to that creator. That was the only remaining advance payment that we have in the business. So over the past three years, we've pushed back against paying advances against revenue, and and that was the the final one, and that was a $1,000,000 advance during that period, which has led to a marginal cash decline at the end there. And, of course, as you know, we have a $1,900,000 overdraft facility to make use of as well, giving us some further comfort.

10:54 I'll walk through our KPIs next. We we release these every quarter, and they tell something of a story about the health and the growth of of the business. First off, we'll start on the left hand side here. This is our global downloads number. It's our monthly average across the quarter, and it highlights the size of our network and how big our network is growing. Let's talk about the chart first. You can see very good consistent growth from early twenty twenty, really through until the final quarter of last year, getting up to a 127,000,000 monthly downloads at its peak. And then you see a drop off there, and I've highlighted it. That is the result of a change that Apple made to their iOS and therefore their podcast listening app, and that changed the way that podcasts are downloaded, and it had a pretty material impact in downloads across the the industry.

11:45 AUDIOBOOM fared better than most of our competitors in in that. And as you'll see, and I'm really pleased to show you off today, the the impact of Apple iOS 17 lasted around nine months. We're now starting to go back up again. So podcasts podcasts were downloaded across our network around 96 and a half million times each month during q three. That's that slight uptick from q two. So we we're turning that corner, and we'll see network downloads starting to to slowly move back up. And, of course, as you know, downloads equals available advertising inventory that we can go out and to sell and monetize. So it's a good proxy for the size of of our inventory levels and what we can go and monetize and and how big we can grow our revenue.

12:36 ECPM, that's our second KPI. That's the middle chart here. ECPM is the amount of revenue that we extract from every 1,000 downloads across the network. So it's a sign of how well we optimize our monetization. It's a sign of, you know, how well our pricing is doing, how well our fill rate and our sell through rate against our inventory is is doing here. So, again, look let's look at the chart. Very strong, consistent growth from early twenty twenty onwards. Then we saw a dip. That's that global ad market recession that I talked to you about through late twenty two and early twenty twenty three. And then you see you see us there on the right hand side of that that chart rebounding very strongly over the past four quarters where we've seen that revenue growth. We've been resilient to the ad market recession.

13:23 We're growing again, and we hit a record $66 per 1,000 downloads in the last quarter driven by that that high revenue number. So we are really extracting more value from every 1,000 downloads than any of our competitors. That is a market leading number, and it's a number that should also move forward in in q four as we go into a a strong demand period for for the business. And then finally, brand count, the chart on the right hand side here, the number of advertisers that that that pays AUDIOBOOM every month to advertise across our network. This one runs back to early twenty twenty one, and, again, it's strong consistent growth across that period going from just over 2,000 advertisers back at start the of 2021 up to 8,200 advertisers in the most recent period.

14:18 What you're seeing here, you're seeing a slight plateauing on the top right here. This is a a change in pricing strategy. So we've lifted our floor pricing, particularly around showcase, our automated ad product. We've lifted that floor pricing. It forces advertisers and brands to pay more to be on our network. So therefore, it limits slightly the number of brands that can afford to pay us to be on the network. But overall, that pricing strategy drives revenue, and we're seeing a tick back up here in in that brand count to over 8,200 in the most recent period. And that's a sign that our blue chip brand strategy, we launched a new sales unit in house just over a year ago, and and they are working with bigger, stronger, more international blue chip brands, bringing those into the network, and you're seeing them come on board and pay a higher price to to be advertising with our our network. So very pleased with these KPIs, all heading in the right direction, all highlight our story, I think, very clearly, and all show that we are trending in the right direction.

15:23 So today, I think the next two slides, I really do wanna highlight Showcase. I talked about it being booming. Excuse the pun, but it it really is flying at this point. Showcase is our global advertising marketplace. We launched it around three years ago. It's our second advertising product. And this is a product that is ad tech based in real time. It matches supply and demand, puts puts those things together, allows us to monetize our audience in a very targeted way. So to break that down a little bit further, the supply comes from all of our network content and our ad inventory. So our technology pushes all of the available ad inventory that we create into showcase. Within that platform, we match it up with demand. That's that's advertising and and buyers coming from our in house team, our blue chip brand advertising team, and then also a programmatic buying ecosystem that we've put together over the past three to four years.

16:24 And that's where we tap into ad networks, create automated programmatic buying arrangements with with advertisers, and then we partner up with with monetization teams around the world to to supply us with revenue in each of those regions as well. So Showcase is putting those two things together, the supply and the demand. It does it very efficiently at huge volumes, and it it's it allows those advertisers to target their advertising against audience, which is which is pushing the price higher there. That's something that advertisers want. So we are allowing them to do that, and that's driving showcase revenue really, really quickly at this point. So we delivered $7,000,000 of revenue through showcase over this last period.

17:12 That's almost a doubling of revenue since q three of of twenty twenty three. So you can really see the results of of that work that that we are doing. What is driving that? Well, it's pricing increase. I talked about it a little earlier. It's those blue chip brands coming in and paying higher pricing to get that audience targeting and that scale and volume that we have within showcase, and that's led to a 68% increase in the pricing that we are seeing within showcase. And then it's also volume. We've sold over 1,000,000,000 impressions in the last quarter. That's up 24% against a year ago. So showcase working really well, growing, and and really driving things forward for us. And you'll see why we are talking today a lot about that focus on high quality, high margin revenue. So this chart at the at the top here highlights our revenue makeup across the business over the the the past few years.

18:05 In 2021, the first year of Showcase, Showcase delivered and contributed around 11% of our group revenue. Roll that forward to 2024 so far, and Showcase is contributing over 30%. And in q three, actually, that contribution was closer to 37%. So Showcase really pushing things forward, contributing more of our revenue every single time. And why is that good? Well, you can see the gross margins there at the bottom. Showcase has a has a significantly higher gross margin than our other two revenue lines of of premium ad sales and and and sonic advertising as well. So real focus on Showcase, driving that forward, creating more inventory for for Showcase to sell.

18:51 Why is Showcase so successful? Well, I I just said that inventory growth is is one of the key things there. Showcase over this last quarter has delivered and sold around three and a half minutes of advertising per hour of content, and that's up from two point two minutes of advertising per hour a year ago, which is a strong increase in in how much advertising is flowing through showcase. But there's significant upside there as well. Right? So three point five minutes, three point six minutes of advertising per hour, that's not a high number if you compare us to commercial radio, for example. Ad loads in commercial radio are four or five times higher than that. Now I'm not gonna push to those levels. That's gonna create a bad product, a bad listener experience, but we can easily see that we could double the amount of advertising that Showcase is delivering within an hour of of content and and see significant upside in Showcase through inventory growth.

19:49 The other thing that will keep Showcase moving and keep Showcase growing is our kind of ad tech innovation. You're aware of some of this already, but AdRip is a tool that we launched just over a year ago that helps podcasters create more ad inventory from their content. We've had great adoption of AdRip over the past eighteen months. More and more of our podcasters are using that on every episode that they that they create a nice driving ad inventory. Secondly, we're we're innovating around brand safety. So we have a set of tools that we're bringing into the business that will allow advertisers to see content that is safe for their their messages and safe for them to be aligned with as being in particular focus around the US election season, but that will continue through. We'll continue to offer those brand safety tools to advertisers on the demand side.

20:38 And then we continue to integrate with more demand side providers, more ad networks, more programmatic partners to really open us up for more demand to to increase our fill rates and to drive that showcase revenue even further. Then we invest. Right? So we've as you know, we launched that blue chip brand team in the fall of of last year, just around a year ago. We've expanded in The UK and The US with some key hires earlier in this year. And next year, we will continue to invest into that sales team. So we will hire more sales people that are focused on brand sales, blue chip brand sales, both in The UK and The US. This will increase fill rates. This will increase pricing, and we'll keep showcase moving forward. So, yeah, very happy with with with the work that we're doing here around showcase.

21:27 That higher margin revenue line is driving the not just the revenue forward, but it's increasing our EBITDA significantly as we go into q four.

21:39 And, Brad, I'll I'll throw it to you for a few minutes to go into some more detail on the numbers. Great. Thanks, Stuart. Hi, everyone, again. So, yeah, let's go through these next few financial focus slides, a few new data points for you if you've listened to us over over the last few sessions. This first slide focuses on revenue, gross margin, and our podcast partner, minimum guarantee exposure over the last five quarters, following on from what was, in my view, a very strong record Q3 update this morning, very much a return to form for the company. It's great to see the company reporting its fourth successive quarter of year on year revenue growth, following the hard market downturn. As Stuart has mentioned, revenue growth of 34%, very impressive, driven along very nicely by growth in showcase revenue, which Stuart was just going through in detail. That top left chart shows that revenue growth over the last five quarters.

22:34 The graph on the top right hand corner of the page details how our gross profit has progressed over this year as well, with a $3,300,000 improvement in gross profit in Q3 of this year versus last significant improvement, again, on that metric. We can also see how that gross margin percentage has improved over the last twelve months as well, improving from 3% in Q3 of last year to 20% in Q3 of this year, again, representing the fourth consecutive quarter. Gross margin improvement on that line, another significant improvement. How has this been delivered? Well, we've, of course, mentioned that revenue growth over the last year. But importantly as well, revenue growth has been delivered at the same time as reducing our minimum guarantee exposure.

23:20 For anyone new, a bit of background for you. To secure exclusive advertising rights to leading podcast talent, we offer carefully modeled minimum guarantee revenue shares secure those advertising rights. Once those entities have been agreed, it's our job as a company to meet and ideally exceed those minimum guarantees in order to deliver the gross margin that we expect through selling advertising. For the leading podcast talent in America, where the majority of our revenue is generated, that's around 20% to 25%. What we saw during the ad market downturn were challenges with the MG contracts, whereby the deals we agreed were based on higher advertising rates than what we were able to be obtained before the downturn. And we refer to this gap as a minimum guarantee true up, effectively a shortfall on the agreed minimum revenue share and recognition of a lower gross margin than anticipated.

24:10 What the company's done and worked extremely hard to do over the last eighteen months is a, honor all contractual minimum guarantees to maintain our relationships with our podcast partners. That's an important important reputational point for the business. And when contracts come up for renewal, we restructure them to make sure that the new MG levels are attainable. What the graph in the bottom right details, well, that's the percentage of content partner payments that relate to MG true ups over our total cost of sales.

24:41 We can see that spike in Q3 of last year, where we recognized our exposure to MG true ups in our P and L, hence the EBITDA loss in Q3 of last year. But since Q3 of last year, we've seen our MG exposure significantly decrease quarter on quarter as we focused on maximizing the value of our inventory on MG shows. We're now clearly seeing the beneficial impact of the contract restructuring. Reducing the exposure to MG contracts as well as increasing that top line revenue number has had a very beneficial impact on the gross margin recognized, and importantly, the adjusted EBITDA that we report. So let's go forward to this next slide. What we can see on here is our OpEx and adjusted EBITDA. Well, what we've said consistently over the last eighteen months is that our OpEx base doesn't materially change. And when we return significant revenue growth, our adjusted EBITDA would grow because the cost base wouldn't change at the same rate as our revenue growth.

25:41 Well, that's exactly what's happened in the third quarter of this year. We've grown revenue. We've reduced the MG exposure. OpEx base didn't change. Guess what? That EBITDA has increased. That's really pleasing to see, and it's validation of what we've been communicating in recent updates. In terms of the OpEx, we can see that on the left hand side, that's that's in line with previous quarters at 2,800,000, and our adjusted EBITDA reached 1,000,000 in the third quarter, 3,000,000 higher than Q3 last year. As a total, the OpEx didn't change, and the consistency of of that OpEx hasn't changed either with around 65% of the cost spent on staff and commissions and 25% on technology costs. That consistency will continue as we go forwards. I view us as efficiency leaders within podcasting.

26:29 Just 39 employees within the company generating over 1,300,000 of revenue per employee on a year to date basis this year, and I think that compares very favorably if you compare us to other podcast companies or companies within wider media as well. We compare extremely favorably on that revenue per employee metric, and we've actually done that exercise internally as well with a basket of similar companies, and we compare very favorably on that revenue per employee basis. On the next slide as well, with our DSO as well, on the on the right hand side of this of this page, we can see that DSO consistently remaining below ninety days, which is our target. Q three this year, was it was seventy seven. As I say, we're very efficient in this company, collected very close to 100% of revenue booked this year. Revenue recognized comes with minimal risk attached, as we can see on the bar chart on the right hand side as well, under a 100 k bad debt provision and write offs last year.

27:29 That's just 11 k this year. So as a proportion of revenue, even last year, it was tiny. This year, it's minuscule. So that that gives us comfort in terms of the revenue that we have been we have been recognizing. Cash balance, relatively consistent over the last year or so. But given the increase in revenue recognized in the third quarter, associated revenue share payments will also increase as well. So we effectively and there's there's a question from this from one of the listeners earlier on in the presentation, Andrew, I think it was, in terms of why doesn't that growth transition directly into cash straightaway? Well, in terms of revenue recognition, we're recognizing the revenue for advertising when the podcast is broadcast.

28:18 On average, we're taking seventy seven days to collect that revenue. Some customers pay within thirty days, some slightly longer. We're paying our podcast partners on a thirty day term. So there's a timing impact there, Andrew, in terms of when we are expecting to see that cash flow through into the business. But given the significant increase in EBITDA, we're also expecting that to flow through into cash in the business, especially when we're not writing any of that revenue off. So hopefully, that answered that question, Andrew, but let me know if it let me know if it doesn't. Going back to the cash point, we also need to make sure our collections are on point through the final quarter of this year. Obviously, q four is going to be strong revenue wise. Q one, we'd expect that seasonally to be lower, and therefore, we'd expect revenue share payments to be lower as well in q one. So therefore, in q one of next year, collecting the higher revenue numbers that we are recognizing, as we're expecting some improvement in the cash number there.

29:14 Historically, adjusted EBITDA has been a proxy for cash generation, still true, with the caveat that we have provided a couple of bonus contracts in 2023, and we are servicing those, which is why, again, while we're not seeing that improvement in the cash position, once those contracts end next year, the expectation is that, once again, adjusted EBITDA will be a proxy for cash generation. Hopefully, those data points and those new data points give you a good background as to what we're looking at in terms of the quarter. Please continue to send in the questions. Hand it back to you, Stuart, to wrap up for the q and a. Thanks, Brad. Alright. Last little section for me, then we'll do some q and a then. Here is what we're focused on really, I think, for the last part of of this year. No surprises here, I think.

30:05 We're expecting strong revenue growth again in q four. Q four is, as Brad said, seasonally the the strongest period for for for the business, and we expect nothing different this year. So as of today, 71,000,000 more than 71,000,000 of revenue on the books with two and a half months of the the year still to go. So we're in a strong position right now. We have our brand sales focus. Our our team are continually working on getting into those bigger international blue chip agencies to connect and partner with with brands in this final quarter. We're expecting further expansion of Showcase. I walked you through all the elements of that and why Showcase will continue to to grow and to move forward very quickly and all the pieces that we're investing in and innovating around to to improve that that showcase growth.

30:57 The reason why q four demand is is so high comes down to a few things, but the NFL season in The US is a is a big driver of of our revenue in q four. English Premier League as as well does the same in in The UK. And, of course, it's holiday season, so so lots of demand from advertisers around Thanksgiving and then the Christmas period also. This year, we're further boosted by the US election. We have, as you'll have seen a couple of weeks ago, renewed contracts with some of the biggest political and new shows that are out there, and those are driving revenue through us for this U US Election Season and beyond. A question came in, I think, earlier just asking, you know, how much of our q four revenue is related to to the US election and if that's the reason why q four revenue will be higher.

31:50 It's it's a small reason why. Right? It's a nice boost, but q four demand is always higher. The election will will just add to that and and and and take it on a little bit further. So it's not that, you know, our our full performance in q four is related to the US election. That's a small chunk of it and a nice chunk to have, but really, it's the the success of showcase the brand sales and the q four demand that will be pushing that q four revenue. And then, of course, I highlighted it earlier, but we are back to network growth. The impact of the Apple changes falling away, less prominent now, so the network is growing again. More downloads, more ad inventory, more for us to sell in our highest demand period of of the year. So that's the revenue growth side that we're focused on. The EBITDA side, we said it before. The analyst has upgraded full year EBITDA to $2,500,000.

32:41 We're confident of beating that. So, you know, it's those reductions in minimum guarantee obligations that that Brad talked about, the restructuring of con contracts, and also the renewal of contracts over on more favorable terms. That's reducing our minimum guarantee obligations, less true ups, higher gross margin that flows through. Showcase gross margin, as you saw, is higher at 31%, and it's contributing to more of our group revenue. And then our stable OpEx base doesn't really change hasn't really changed for a number of years. Very efficient there. Those three things combined, we'll see that EBITDA gearing across the the the final part of this year. So we're excited about q four. We are very excited about bringing you those results in early January.

33:28 AUDIOBOOM is in a great place, rebounded, being resilient to those ad market troubles of the of kind of two years ago. Four straight quarters now of EBITDA growth and revenue growth, analyst upgrade on the EBITDA side. Yeah. We're just really pushing forward hard here, and we're investing and innovating in all the right areas. So AUDIOBOOM's in a great place, and I will leave hand you back to Jake. I'll be back with the q and a in just a moment. Perfect. That's great. Stuart, Brad, thank you very much indeed for your presentation this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, please do continue to submit your questions just by using the q and a tab that's situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the team take a few moments to review those questions that were submitted already, I'd just like to remind you that a recording of this presentation along with a copy of the slides and the published q and a can all be accessed via your investor dashboard.

34:23 Brad, Stuart, as you can see there, we have received a number of questions throughout your presentation this afternoon. And thank you to all of those on the call for taking the time to submit their questions. But, guys, at this point, if I may just hand back to you just to read out those questions and give your responses where it's appropriate to do so. And if I pick up from you at the end, that'd be great. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Jake. So I think we've talked a lot about the the operations of the business so far. So maybe the first few questions here, we'll we'll pick some more corporate questions. This is probably the most popular question. Four or five of these have come in today asking about the company exploring a US listing that we talked about three months ago, and we talked about it a little bit on the last q and a. And it says, can you update us on on the exploration of of US listing?

35:13 Yeah. Look. As you know, we share your frustration around the the value of this business and the share price relative to our performance. You know, we're just announcing this record performance in so many areas. Relative to that, the share price has has just never been this low. And today, small increase very small increase at this point highlights exactly that. So we're frustrated with AIM. We're frustrated with the share price and the valuation of this business. And so we wanted to understand whether being listed in The US would materially improve that valuation and what that that process would look like. And and that's what we talked about a few months back. We have made good progress, I think, there over the the past few months. We spent a lot of time since the summer seeking out and in conversation with many trusted and experienced people, everyone from, you know, capital markets teams in The US, legal, logistic side of things.

36:16 A lot of information has been been shared there, and it's been very helpful. I think we still need to do more work. There's more information needed there. But I think what is clear and what we've heard a lot is that I think we need as a business just a little more scale before we make that move. Right? There's some key numbers that that we hear time and time again, and those key numbers are really a $100,000,000 of revenue and 8 to $10,000,000 of EBITDA. And the reason for that is because at that size, that would enable us to be visible and of interest to more sophisticated investors in The US. What we do not need, right, what this business does not need is to move to The US and just be in the kind of the sites of, you know, unsophisticated lower class investors in The US. That's not gonna change that valuation. That's not gonna be good for this business. So we need to be at the right size to to to make that move. So that's a $100,000,000 of revenue, 8 to $10,000,000 of of EBITDA.

37:20 And I think the exciting thing here for me is that that's not a move that we're making tomorrow, but there's a very clear path in our results to those numbers, particularly if you think about those on an annualized basis and what we're gonna do in q four in in in this business and how next year is looking. There's a very clear path to those numbers that will give us that scale, that visibility in The US to to to formalize that move. And I'm really excited that that we are on that path to to being able to do that. I lost who this one is from, but a question came in earlier asking us to give background on our major shareholders because there are different shareholders reported on some websites to what's on the AUDIOBOOM GROUP PLC website?

38:09 So, Brad, maybe you can dig into that one for us as well. Yeah. Sure. I think that was from Gavin. Okay. Anyone who's asked that question. So, yeah, I mean, firstly, in on that point, in line with AIM rules, we disclose on our PLC website any shareholder that holds more than 3% of the company's shares. Secondly, our major shareholders page is absolutely reflective of the company's understanding of who the major shareholders of this company are, why anyone would think that's not the case is is beyond me, quite frankly. But the background on what we do regarding understanding who our major shareholders are as a company, we work with our brokers Cavendish and an external third party, Liquidity, to conduct quarterly reviews of our shareholder register. These reviews can also be done and have been done on an ad hoc basis should there ever be a prolonged higher volume period of trading done in our shares, just to understand the movements in the register.

39:05 The information from the analysis is subject to a caveat. It's only as good as the information being returned to liquidity. But given we've been doing this for quite a few years, obviously, we would expect ourselves to be able to detect any unusual information in the analysis received. As I say, in line with them rules, we disclose any shareholder on our website holding on 3% of shares. If we were to identify a shareholder who has not disclosed a movement either from below three to above 3% or across a percentage threshold, so from four to five or, you know, whatever it might be, eleven ten to 11. That's the point you, you know, you have to disclose your shareholding when you cross that percentage threshold. If we identify that and that doesn't match with our records, then we'll contact that individual specifically and ask them to submit a t r one form disclosing their shareholding.

39:55 T r one submission is a shareholder responsibility rather than a company responsibility. There's some confusion about that, but a t l one submission is a shareholder responsibility. But the company can absolutely ask shareholders to confirm their holding as we've done historically. But, you know, to conclude again, we conduct the analysis quarterly. You know, the the major shareholder page was updated, you know, for for any changes that we received through through a tier one submission, and then we consistently evaluate evaluate that register. Hopefully, that answers the question, but if not, please email me directly. Thanks, Brad. Time for a couple more, I think. This one is, how is AI being used in podcasting and audio BOOM?

40:41 I think we we kind of answered the question similar to this probably a year ago, maybe a little bit more on this q and a session. And we said at the time we're starting to see some tools emerge in some areas where it it could be useful to the business. And we've we've moved on a lot today. AI touches many, many parts of the business. So I'll just give you a few examples as quickly as as we don't have too long left. But in our business development, we use an AI tool that can tell us how much advertising ran in a particular podcast, any podcast in the world, and how those ads were executed, which brands were advertising in that podcast, and how the audience reacted to those ads. And that's a key part for us in being able to value that podcast if we are looking to add it to to our network. So that's a very cool tool we have. We also have another AI tool that creates advertising for showcase. So we simply take bullet points or a script from an advertiser.

41:39 We put it into the tool, tell the tool what kind of voice we want want, what kind of music, what kind of style the ad needs to be. And within fifteen seconds, it has created a a professionally produced thirty second audio ad that can start running in Showcase immediately, just very, very efficient. Another tool that helps us I I mentioned brand safety earlier on. There's a brand safety AI tool AI tool that we have that basically ensures that advertising doesn't run-in content that would be problematic for the brands. The AI effectively listens to the content, understands the context of the content, and then it will red light or green light that content for various advertising types. So lots of different ways we are using it. More and more tools becoming available to us.

42:26 Lots of efficiencies being created. And when Brad talks about that, that low headcount that we have in the business, you know, I I do think AI will help us over the coming years to kind of keep that headcount very lean and and in a good place. Probably this is probably a good one to end on then as we're we're hitting time. But looking ahead to 2025, where will the company be investing to speed up growth? Well, I think you can all hopefully see the impact our innovation and investment around showcase and our brand advertising sales focus has had over the past twelve or eighteen months, and we're really only just getting started there. So I think we'll invest in expanding that brand sales team. This is the the unit that we launched last fall last October, I think it was, to build partnerships with with with blue chip global brands. So we'll grow that. We'll add new heads, particularly in The US. Those people will be in those major agencies creating those partnerships.

43:25 One thing I think that we need for Showcase is is really more supply. We've had some supply constraints, really. Showcase is is is fantastic. It will deliver revenue and demand against whatever supply we we throw at it. So we need more supply that will drive Showcase. So we will invest in more tech innovation, I think, to build tools that go beyond independent creators. As you know, we partner right now with independent creators. We'll look at building tools that are more of an enterprise level solution that will enable us to partner and create supply partnerships with networks and enterprise level providers. So I think that's a a a big step that we'll push into over the next year.

44:12 And I think we have some global growth in mind. Like, we do a great job in The US, The UK, Australia. We're strong there. I think next territory for us to start to optimize is Canada, where we have strong audience and inventory levels, but we haven't been as strong on the monetization side. So we'll invest there in some form to ensure that, really, that revenue kind of catches up with supply. So those are the three key areas, and and they're exciting to me. I I think that will that will drive this business forward pretty quickly. Alright. I think that's pretty much it for time. So so thanks, everyone. Back to you, Jake. Perfect, Stuart, Brad. That's great. And thank you very much indeed for addressing all of those questions that came in from investors. And, of course, we will publish all those responses out on the platform and where it's appropriate to do so. But, Stuart, perhaps before really just looking to redirect those on the call to provide you with their feedback, which I know is particularly important to yourself and the company, if I could please just ask you for a few closing comments just to wrap up with, that'd be great.

45:16 Yeah. Thanks, Jake. Look. I think what we've told you today kind of says it all. It's been a great q three for for this business. All the numbers are are really strong records across the business. We are very, very confident that q four is is gonna be even stronger, and and, again, we'll we'll we'll drive things forward. This model works. The industry is growing. We're taking market share. We are getting bigger and stronger every single period. And, like, this remains just the best way for you as an investor to be exposed to podcasting, which is is going through a period of strong structural growth. So with the share price where it is now relative to this to to this performance, it's never been cheaper to to to get in and be exposed to to to podcasting, which I think, as as we all know, is a fantastic medium, an incredible part to to to be part of.

46:17 Perfect, Stuart. That's great. And thank you once again for updating investors this afternoon. Could I please ask investors not to close this session as you will now be automatically redirected for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the management team can really better understand your views and expectations. This will only take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team of AUDIOBOOM GROUP PLC, we would like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That now concludes today's session. So good afternoon to you all.