Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Podcast One's fiscal first quarter 2027 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 open for questions. Presenting on today's call is Kit Gray, president and founder of Podcast One and Craig Christensen, interim chief financial officer. I would like to remind you that 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. 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 differ materially from those discussed on this call for a variety of reasons. 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 those forward-looking statements, including those described in its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2026 and subsequent SEC filings. You'll 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 the investor relations website for more important content. The following discussion, including responses to your questions, contains time-sensitive information and reflects management's views as the date of this call, August 12, 2026. And expect as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information after today's call. I'd 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. I would now like to turn the call over to Podcast One's president, Kit Gray.

Thank you and welcome to our fiscal first quarter 2027 earnings call. We entered fiscal 2027 with strong momentum, building on the progress we made throughout the past year. During the first quarter, we continued expanding our content portfolio, strengthening strategic partnerships and growing our audience through premium programming, original content development and creator-led franchises. Podcast One continues to distinguish itself as the leading pure play podcasting platform in 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. Booster scales advertising management and proposal recommendations. Adobe Audition ensures best-in-class audio quality. PodEngine supports discoverability through SEO and insights. Magellan AI powers advertising attribution. And Opus Pro converts long-form video into short-form content that fuels audience growth across platforms. Our team continues leveraging AI-based search capabilities to discover new talent, identify emerging trends and connect timely topics with the content across our network. These tools directly support how we grow shows, monetize audiences and operate more efficiently at scale. Throughout the quarter, we continued executing on our strategy of expanding our network through premium creator partnerships, strategic acquisitions, original content development and long-term creator relationships. One of our most significant milestones this quarter was advancing to the number six position in PodTrack's ranking of U.S. podcast publishers, surpassing Disney and further reinforcing Podcast One's position as one of the largest podcast networks in the country. This achievement reflects the continued growth of our audience, the strength of our programming, and the dedication of our creators and team. Thank you so much for joining us. We also acquired Life Happens with Barb and Michelle while officially launching our original series It's Okay, We're All Gonna Die with Nurse Julie, reflecting our continued investment in both established creator brands and original intellectual property. Further strengthening our creator roster, we renewed our partnership with Lindsay Chrisley's The Southern Tea, which recently surpassed 2.5 million downloads across more than 248 episodes. We also partnered with Pave Studios on A&E's The First 48, expanding our relationship with premium media brands and creating additional opportunities to reach new audiences. Across our network, Podcast One creators continued attracting influential voices from across entertainment and popular culture. Notable guests during the quarter include actor Josh Dumal on The Adam Carolla Show, Dancing with the Stars pro Ezra Sosa on Off the Vine, and Mandy Moore on Yesterdays. Thank you for having me. As our network continues to grow, so do the opportunities to create value for creators, advertisers and listeners alike. Our investment in technology, audience development and advertising infrastructure continue to strengthen our ability to connect brands with highly engaged audiences while helping creators expand their reach across audio, video and social platforms. As podcast advertising continues to mature and brands increasingly seek trusted creator relationships and measurable results, we believe Podcast One remains well positioned to capitalize on these long-term industry trends through our diversified content portfolio, expanding creator network, and technology-enabled platform. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Craig to review our financial results.

Thank you, Kit. As a reminder, our fiscal year 2027 began on April 1st. Revenue in our first quarter of fiscal 2027 was a record $16.1 million. Operating loss in the first quarter was $1.6 million, compared to an operating loss of $1.1 million in the same year-ago quarter. This $500,000 increase was driven primarily by stock-based compensation within G&A. Net loss for the first quarter was $1.6 million, or negative 5 cents per basic and diluted share compared to a net loss of 1.1 million or negative 4 cents per share in the same year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was positive 1.6 million compared to 580,000 in the same year ago quarter driven by revenue growth and contribution margin improvement. We ended the quarter with 7 million in cash and cash equivalents and no debt on the balance sheet. With that, I'll turn the call back over to you, Kit. Thanks, Craig.

We are pleased with the momentum we've carried into fiscal 2027 and remain very optimistic about the opportunities ahead for Podcast One and the broader podcast industry. Podcasting continues to evolve rapidly, and we believe the opportunity extends well beyond traditional audio. Video is becoming an increasingly important part of podcast discovery and consumption. While major media and technology companies continue investing in and others. As that ecosystem expands, we see significant opportunities to extend the reach and value of the content we developed across additional platforms and formats. We are also seeing continued strategic activity across the broader media landscape, with major companies making significant investments in creator-led businesses, content and intellectual property. These transactions reinforce the value being placed on premium content, engaged audiences, and the data and relationships that come with them. Under Steve Lehman's leadership, we continue to evaluate opportunities that can strengthen our platform, expand our creator offerings, and create long-term shareholder value. Podcast One, we believe the next phase of growth is about more than simply adding podcasts to our network. It's about identifying great creators and ideas, developing them into successful franchises, and finding opportunities to distribute that content across audio, video, television, and other platforms. We are particularly excited about our ability to develop original intellectual property that can travel beyond the podcast feed. Projects like Varnumtown demonstrate the potential for Podcast One content to become broader entertainment franchises, and we believe there is significant opportunity ahead as we continue developing and investing in original programming. At the same time, AI continues to help us improve operational efficiencies, enhance audience discovery, identify emerging listener interests, and better understand the topics and formats that resonate with audiences. Combined with our growing content library and audience data, these capabilities give us an increasingly powerful foundation for developing and monetizing content. The podcast industry itself continues to demonstrate significant long-term potential with consumption reaching record levels and audiences increasingly engaging with podcasts across audio, video and social platforms. is uniquely positioned at the intersection of creators, content, audiences, data, and distribution. As we look ahead, our focus is on continuing to build that platform, finding the next great creators and ideas, expanding the ways our content can reach audiences, and creating more value from the intellectual property we develop. I want to thank our team, our creators, our advertising partners, and our shareholders for their continued support. With that, we'll now open the line for questions. 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 comes from the line of Barry Sine with Lictifield Hills Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Afternoon. Wanted to touch on the topic of Video on podcasts, adding a video instead of just audio. I know that's a pretty significant trend. Kit, maybe you could tell us where you stand on that, how much of your content is now also produced in video format, if you could tick off some of the major talents that are available in video, and what has been the reception of that through some of your distribution partners?

Hey, Barry. Good afternoon. Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for the questions today and the time. I appreciate it. Yeah, video is a huge part of what we're doing, not only at Podcast One, but in the medium. It's widely accepted. It's huge for Discovery, leading with YouTube. Their YouTube AdSense revenue generation model has helped us out quite a bit. for some of our shows, you know, specifically, you know, Adam Tirola has a big audience on his YouTube channel. Some more news guys do as well. Stasi and others in our network have really significant, you know, audio views or video views even beyond just, you know, and, you know, just YouTube now. I mean, Stassi, whose television show just relaunched on Hulu just this last month, where she references her podcast quite often, is, you know, also featured on Netflix now, too. So all these video distribution channels are getting more and more into the podcasting world, you know, allows us to expand our discovery, but also charge more for advertising CPMs just based on having their commercials in video. In many of our shows, if you watch them now, the commercials are, you know, hosts done with video and with products, which allows us to charge great CPMs and advertisers see amazing results. Video is a huge part of what we do, and specifically in the discovery side of it. These short clips, whether it's on YouTube or Instagram or TikTok, it's great for us to clip two, three-minute segments of the podcast to promote the shows, make them sponsorable. All of that adds to what we do.

That's very helpful. And then my follow up is more on advertising revenue. So you recently jumped up to the number six ranking in the PodTrack rankings. Congratulations on that. What does that mean for, you know, Sue McNamara and her sales team and then also for programmatic? And how has advertiser willingness to use podcasts for their advertising changed over the last year? Is the perception changing and improving?

Yeah, I mean, I'll answer the last part first. Yes, you're seeing brands, you know, when I say brands, it's not just using the code type brands. You're seeing the progressives, the State Farms, the O'Reillys, the Lowe's, those type of companies are jumping into the podcasting space, Macy's as well. These are These brands are actually realizing the benefit of podcasting, one, because they get the attribution for using it as a digital medium, but they're also using it on the creative side where they're really developing integrations into the communities of the talent, right? So Macy's were, you know, trying on clothes on air. We're talking about deals and discounts and what people can go, you know, go and buy, right? And it's just really integrated not only in the audio, the video, but also the social. You know, when you look at that, that's the exciting thing for brands because they're just not buying box and box. That business is definitely booming. especially with us, but it's gone beyond that. The brands are really trying to buy into the communities, which is awesome. And for a company like us, where we have really strong relationships with the talent and the production of the shows, we can gain trust for these brands to make sure they're getting what they pay for and they're protected in their messaging. That's a big part of really growing the brand business in the podcasting space is actually having trust and we're able to provide that. As far as the programmatic side and being number six, we actually, we just came after July too. We've remained number six, which is great news for us. That's really, you know, it's a good thing to open doors for our sales team in the sense that, you know, there's some Big names behind us, whether it's Disney or Barstool or CNN, some of those networks, sometimes it's easier for them to get in the door of advertisers or brands, and we can actually say we're bigger than them, which is a nice sales point. When it comes to programmatic and the Amazon R19 deal, That's where that really comes into play, right? As we get more and more consumption on our network, there's more impressions to monetize, whether that's done by our direct sales team with our highest CPMs or the Amazon deal and having them buy in through our network or programmatically where we continue to evolve and grow through our partners that we have in that world too. Yeah, it's been honestly really just a great year for growth on all levels, whether it's revenue, audience, and just brands buying into the space. It's been great.

Just a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. Your next question comes from the line of Barry Sine with Lichtefeld Hills Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, that's not a mistake. I limited myself and then jumped back in the queue, but I guess I am the next one. I had one more question, Kit. On the live one call, Rob mentioned the Netflix, and I haven't seen a separate press release. I'm very enthusiastic about that. and I want to get a little more data from you because it seems to me as if your core demographic is very closely aligned with the Netflix core demographic. If you could remind us, you know, what your demographics look like, age, gender, etc. And then, you know, when did Podcast One podcasts start appearing on Netflix? And then, you know, Rob was asked, What the revenue model is, he said you're not disclosing that, but whatever that model is, when will investors start to see the benefit of that relationship show up on the podcast One Income Statement?

Yeah, so the Netflix got into podcasting, I don't know, maybe six months ago, maybe a little bit longer. I had to guess. Stassi is our lead pony in that world. She's a great personality. She comes from the Vanderpump world, if you guys don't know. Barry, I know you are well-versed in Vanderpump. You've got this down. But she is a superstar and just an amazing talent. Her show on Hulu has gotten picked up. This is the second season. It's fantastic. She's really fun. So her podcast going on Netflix just made a lot of sense. We worked with her agent to get that. show up there. And really, the benefit is discovery. And we are running commercials in there, right? So when I go to Macy's, I say, all right, well, Stacey is not only going to have it in her video, audio world, but she's also going to have that in the Netflix distribution as well. So You're going to see premium rates because of that and, you know, growth of the shows, right? So it's great. It's just another big company. You know, you've got the YouTubes, you've got the Amazons, the Spotify, the, you know, the XM series is just jumping in full throttle and podcasts. And now you see Netflix, you see, you know, you got Disney is doing some stuff too now. I think these distribution channels are going to be just additives to podcasts and just growing as a medium and a distribution channel for advertisers. So you'll start to see that. You're seeing it in her show in terms of revenue and getting premium rates. So we'll continue that relationship and continue to charge forward with some other shows getting on there and some of the other platforms I just mentioned.

So just to follow up on that, if you could remind us what your demographics look like. I have a sense of what Netflix looks like. And then it sounded as if that's the only podcast you have on Netflix. What about adding other podcasts to Netflix?

Yeah, we're in talks on that. They wanted to roll out with kind of a phase. They've got a bunch on there. And we'll continue to talk to them about adding more. We'll see how that goes over the next six months. We picked up one of the shows with Billy Corrigan. If you guys know Billy from his days with Smashing Pumpkins, take a look at his video on YouTube and how amazing it is. It's a really cool set. He's a very cool, interesting guy that has amazing interviews. It just fits. So I think you're going to see more and more of that type of stuff over the next six to 12 months. As far as our demographics, when I created the company, I really wanted to be agnostic on that. I wanted to be able to really fill out any RFP an advertiser would have with a group of shows that hit any demo. Yes, we, you know, I think this is probably the most of most of our consumption comes in the female 25-44 range. You know, true crimes, the Safis, the Caimans, the lady gangs, the pop apologists, those guys for sure are a big part of what we're doing. But you still, you're seeing growth in the older demographics and you'll see the people like Adam Carolla, Jordan Harbinger, Brendan Schaub, really round out the male 2554 demo and in some cases even higher. We're all getting older. Adam is still chugging along and doing great with his podcast and just building that and having new distribution channels as he's on XM Sirius with Megyn Kelly's network and You know, you're going to see an older demographic there as Adam gets older and his audience gets older. But we're still getting a lot of advertisers in and a lot of consumption. And that's great. We can kind of fill out that demographic when we go to RFPs as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Leo Carpio with Joseph Gunner. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, Kit. A couple of quick questions on the quarter. In terms of the M&A opportunities, are there still any platforms available for you to pick up here at this stage, or more you're focused on the organic growth, monetizing, IP creation, and developing talent at this point?

Yeah. Hey, Leo. Good to hear from you. To answer your question, we're doing it all, right? The main part of the business is either acquiring existing shows with an audience, growing them, monetizing them, doing more with them. That's a big part of what we do. We're launching our own shows with our own IP and growing them and monetizing them is a big part of what we're doing and talking about different distribution channels. That's a big part of our business. but when we look at M&A, yes. I was on a call yesterday with Steve and we've got other things that we're talking about constantly. Those are interesting. There's more and more companies with great opportunities and great ideas whether that's representing podcasts, expanding the paywall world or Technology. That's going to be an important thing over the next year. I think there's going to be a lot of acquisition deals out there. I know that a lot of different companies are being approached by some of the bigger groups and then a bunch of the smaller companies are talking to other small companies that complement each other quite well. And I think you're going to see acquisitions not only with Podcast One, but I think you're going to see acquisitions throughout the industry over the next six to 12 months for sure.

Okay, and a quick housekeeping question. Can you remind us how your seasonality and your revenue in terms of how it progresses through the calendar year in terms of which quarters are strong versus which are a little softer?

Yeah, you know, obviously we had a really good quarter last quarter. Best, I think, ever that we've ever done, which is tremendous. Summertime, usually a little bit slow, you know, slower because People are on the beach. People are enjoying families and stuff like that. But as school gets back into gear and people get back to work over the next 30 days, you're going to start to see more consumption of podcasts. As calendar year Q4 rolls up, that's always our biggest quarter. So that's typically how it works.

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

All right. Well, thank you everyone for your time today. I really appreciate it. We are extremely happy with where the year ended, where the quarter is, and where the team is headed moving forward. Super excited about some of the projects that we got a chance to talk about a little bit this morning. Please keep an eye on us as you move forward and keep watching us. We're launching some great projects and some great shows. I hope you guys get to enjoy them. But looking forward to you guys and looking forward to another great year at Podcast One. Thank you very much for all your support, all our shareholder support, and of course, the team at Podcast One and Live One. Thank you very much.

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