LiveOne (LVO) Earnings Call zum 1. Quartal des Geschäftsjahres 2027: 19,4 Mio. USD Umsatz, PodcastOne-Wachstum

Wichtigste Erkenntnisse

• LiveOne wies für die am 30. Juni 2026 beendeten drei Monate des ersten Quartals des Geschäftsjahres 2027 einen konsolidierten Umsatz von 19,4 Mio. US-Dollar und ein bereinigtes EBITDA von 4,3 Mio. US-Dollar aus.
• Der Umsatz der Audio-Sparte betrug 18,6 Mio. US-Dollar bei einem bereinigten EBITDA von 6,3 Mio. US-Dollar. Die Ergebnisse profitierten von Stock-for-Service-Transaktionen und dem Wegfall bestimmter Verbindlichkeiten.
• PodcastOne erzielte einen Rekordumsatz von 16,1 Mio. US-Dollar und ein bereinigtes EBITDA von 1,6 Mio. US-Dollar. Laut Management ist das Geschäft auf Kurs für eine auf das Jahr hochgerechnete Umsatzrate von über 60 Mio. US-Dollar.
• LiveOne verzeichnete einen GAAP-Nettoverlust von 3,1 Mio. US-Dollar bzw. 0,23 US-Dollar je unverwässerter und verwässerter Aktie, verglichen mit einem Verlust von 3,9 Mio. US-Dollar bzw. 0,40 US-Dollar je Aktie im Vorjahr.
• Im Laufe des Quartals stiegen die liquiden Mittel laut Management um 3,3 Mio. US-Dollar, das Eigenkapital erhöhte sich um 7 Mio. US-Dollar und das Unternehmen tilgte Verbindlichkeiten in Höhe von 5 Mio. US-Dollar.
• Das Management sieht innerhalb von drei Jahren einen Weg zu einem Jahresumsatz von über 250 Mio. US-Dollar, gestützt durch B2B-Vertrieb, PodcastOne, potenzielle Übernahmen und die Lizenzierung von KI-Inhalten. Dies ist eine Zielsetzung des Managements und keine formelle Prognose.

Wichtigste Finanzdaten

Geschäftliche und operative Entwicklung

PodcastOne blieb der wesentliche operative Wachstumstreiber. Der Umsatz erreichte einen Rekordwert von 16,1 Mio. US-Dollar, verglichen mit einem Jahresumsatz von rund 17 Mio. US-Dollar bei der Übernahme des Geschäfts durch LiveOne vor fünf Jahren. Das Management erklärte, dass PodcastOne derzeit eine Jahresumsatzrate von mehr als 60 Mio. US-Dollar aufweist und ein positives bereinigtes EBITDA erwirtschaftet.

LiveOne baute seine B2B-Vertriebspipeline weiter aus. Das Unternehmen unterzeichnete eine Vierjahresvereinbarung mit einem nicht genannten großen Einzelhändler und gab an, kurz vor dem Abschluss mit einem zweiten Einzelhandelspartner zu stehen. Das Management nannte zudem Umsätze von mehr als 20 Mio. US-Dollar mit Amazon und mehr als 27 Mio. US-Dollar mit Paramount, ohne den genauen Zeitraum zu nennen.

Die Automobilpartnerschaft mit AT&T ist aktiv, obwohl die Namen der Partner weiterhin Geheimhaltungsvereinbarungen unterliegen. Das Management erwartet innerhalb von 30 bis 45 Tagen ein umfassenderes Update. LiveOne ist zudem auf drei großen Smart-TV-Plattformen integriert, auf denen die Marketingprogramme anlaufen. Das Management rechnet innerhalb von 60 bis 90 Tagen mit einer besseren Visibilität hinsichtlich der Nutzerakzeptanz.

Die Kooperation mit Netflix wird sich zunächst auf Podcasts statt auf Musik konzentrieren. Kommerzielle Bedingungen wurden nicht genannt. Das Management gab an, dass Videoinhalte mittlerweile etwa 30 % des Umsatzes ausmachen – verglichen mit 0 % zum Zeitpunkt der Übernahme.

LiveOne prüft potenzielle M&A-Transaktionen im Wert von mehr als 400 Mio. US-Dollar. Laut Management macht die nächste Transaktion Fortschritte; sie soll stark ergebnissteigernd sein, in das Audio- und Video-Ökosystem des Unternehmens passen und zum bereinigten EBITDA beitragen.

Das Unternehmen verfolgt zudem Lizenzierungschancen im Bereich der künstlichen Intelligenz. LiveOne verfügt über mehr als 250.000 Stunden Video- und 500.000 Stunden Audioinhalte. Laut Management befindet man sich in Gesprächen mit 17 KI-Unternehmen bezüglich einer nicht-exklusiven Inhaltsbepreisung von 100 bis 500 US-Dollar pro Stunde.

LiveOne hat bereits 7 Mio. US-Dollar seines 12 Mio. US-Dollar schweren Aktienrückkaufprogramms umgesetzt. Zudem erwarb das Unternehmen 150.000 PodcastOne-Aktien und tilgte die nachrangigen Verbindlichkeiten von PodcastOne.

Ausblick des Managements

Das Management glaubt, dass LiveOne in naher Zukunft die Umsatzmarke von 100 Mio. US-Dollar überschreiten und innerhalb von drei Jahren mehr als 250 Mio. US-Dollar erreichen kann. Das längerfristige Ziel hängt von der Umsetzung mit großen Vertriebspartnern, weiteren B2B-Vereinbarungen, dem Wachstum von PodcastOne sowie potenziellen M&A-Aktivitäten ab.

Für Smart-TV- und andere B2B-Kanäle erwartet das Management im vierten Quartal des Geschäftsjahres einen signifikanteren Anstieg der Umsätze. Das Unternehmen plant die Aufstockung von Führungskräften und Vertriebspersonal in den Bereichen Einzelhandel, Mobilfunknetzbetreiber, Automobil und anderen B2B-Bereichen, nachdem der Personalbestand zuvor von rund 350 auf etwa 80 Mitarbeiter reduziert wurde.

Das Management rechnet damit, dass die Lizenzierung von KI-Inhalten im nächsten Quartal erste Umsätze generieren wird, vorbehaltlich von Vereinbarungen mit Künstlern und Musikrechteinhabern. Eine globale Musikexpansion würde zudem vom Gewinnen eines Vertriebspartners abhängen, der eine breitere internationale Lizenzierung erfordert.

Risiken und wichtige Beobachtungspunkte

• Das bereinigte EBITDA für das Q1 des Geschäftsjahres sowie die Margen von Slacker enthielten einmalige Effekte. Rund 1,5 Mio. US-Dollar stammten aus der Tilgung von Verbindlichkeiten, während Stock-for-Service-Vereinbarungen zusätzliche Unterstützung boten.
• Das Management erklärte, dass sich die Margen wieder auf ein normaleres Niveau einpendeln dürften, es sei denn, LiveOne schließt weiterhin Stock-for-Service-Transaktionen ab.
• Vereinbarungen auf Stock-for-Service-Basis erhöhten die Aktienanzahl. Das Management erwartet innerhalb von 60 bis 90 Tagen weitere Transaktionen im Rahmen von Deals im Wert von rund 15 Mio. US-Dollar zu einem Preis von 7,50 US-Dollar pro Aktie oder höher.
• Mehrere Partnerschaften befinden sich noch in einem frühen Stadium, und wesentliche kommerzielle Bedingungen, die Identität der Partner, Daten zur Nutzerakzeptanz sowie der zeitliche Ablauf der Umsätze unterliegen Geheimhaltungsvereinbarungen.
• Die KI-Monetarisierung hängt von Verhandlungen mit Erstellern von Inhalten, Künstlern und Musikpartnern ab. Die vom Management genannte Preisspanne und der Zeitrahmen bleiben vorausschauend.
• Das Dreijahres-Umsatzziel erfordert eine fortgesetzte Expansion mit bestehenden Partnern, eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung der B2B-Pipeline sowie die effektive Durchführung potenzieller Übernahmen.

Highlights der Analysten-Fragerunde

Die Analysten konzentrierten sich auf den Zeitplan und die wirtschaftlichen Rahmendaten der B2B-Beziehungen von LiveOne. Das Management bestätigte, dass AT&T LiveOne-Inhalte bereits über Kooperationen im Automobilbereich anbietet, konnte jedoch keine Hersteller nennen. Ein weiteres Update wird innerhalb von 30 bis 45 Tagen erwartet.

In Bezug auf Smart-TVs gab das Management an, dass LiveOne bei allen drei in der Telefonkonferenz erwähnten Hauptpartnern verfügbar ist. Das Marketing laufe erst an, und das Unternehmen erwartet innerhalb von 60 bis 90 Tagen klarere Daten zu Nutzung und Konvertierung.

Zu Netflix erklärte das Management, dass das erste Angebot aus Podcasts bestehen wird. Einige Inhalte könnten Traffic- oder werbefinanzierte Modelle nutzen, während Premium-Künstler eine direkte Monetarisierung erfordern würden. Konkrete Zahlungsbedingungen wurden nicht offengelegt.

Hinsichtlich der Margen bestätigte Interim-CFO Craig Christensen, dass die Profitabilität von Slacker im ersten Quartal des Geschäftsjahres nicht vollständig nachhaltig war. Die Tilgung von Verbindlichkeiten im Wert von rund 1,5 Mio. US-Dollar verbesserte die GAAP-Ergebnisse, während Stock-for-Service-Vereinbarungen das bereinigte EBITDA zusätzlich erhöhten.

Das Management gab an, dass potenzielle Übernahmen nicht auf Podcasting beschränkt sind. LiveOne prüft Möglichkeiten im gesamten Audio- und Videobereich, einschließlich kleinerer, ergebnissteigernder Transaktionen sowie größerer strategischer Zusammenschlüsse oder Verkäufe von Vermögenswerten.

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz zu den Quartalsergebnissen

Vollständiges Transkript der Telefonkonferenz

Ausführungen des Managements

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.

[Operator Instructions]

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.

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 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 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. And except 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.

Now I would like to turn the call over to LiveOne's CEO, Rob Ellin.

Robert Ellin

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 revenues of record revenues of $16.2 million (sic) [ $16.1 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've 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. Our focus is simple: grow revenues, grow EBITDA, generate cash, strengthen the balance sheet and create shareholder value. And 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 4-year agreement with one of the biggest retailers in the world. We are very close to a second retailer. And 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 and largest companies in the world.

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're seeing, we believe there is a clear path to over $250 million in revenues over the next 3 years. And 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's ever been with over $400 million of potential deals in the pipeline. 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. This is the second round of acquisitions where there was over $10 billion of them in the first round, and I fully expect there'll be a larger scale acquisition mode, right, happening in the overall industry.

It's very strong belief that you're 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've also now officially sold our podcast Varnamtown to a major streaming partner, and we're 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. We have over 250,000 hours of video content, 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 nonexclusive 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.

And then 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. 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've ever assembled. I've 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 almost $40 million and then 5 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.

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

Craig Christensen

Thanks, Rob. I'll spend a few minutes just providing a brief overview of the results for our first quarter. Consolidated revenue for the 3 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 negative $0.23 per basic and diluted share. This compares to net loss of $3.9 million or negative $0.40 per basic and diluted share in the same quarter last year. At the operating level, our PodcastOne business reported record revenue of $16.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $1.6 million. 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.

So overall, we see strong momentum in the first half of fiscal '27, led by the continued growth of PodcastOne. And as Rob mentioned, we have several strategic opportunities gaining traction, which we believe can support the continued growth and create long-term value.

So Rob, I'll turn it back over to you.

Robert Ellin

And 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. But 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 5 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.

And 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 has, really special to see what our team has done, and we continue to look at ways to increase each of those. And again, we'll continue to buy back stock. So I want to thank everyone for joining. I thank our shareholders for the patience, and we look forward to a really exciting end of the year.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Your first question from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners.

Fragen und Antworten

Brian Kinstlinger

My questions will be around the B2B deals, and I'll 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?

Robert Ellin

Yes. So we're under NDA on that, so we can't give names at this point. But the answer is yes and now. We'll have a, hopefully, a very substantial update on that in the next 30 to 45 days and are really excited about that partnership. And 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 and T-Mobile and obviously, AT&T being the biggest is really exciting for us to have this opportunity to grow with them.

Brian Kinstlinger

Great. Similar question on smart TVs. You've got 3 of the largest that you are -- who's integrating your content. Are all 3 now selling TVs that consumers can buy with your content? And if so, can you talk about any evidence of usage, success, subscriptions, anything like that?

Robert Ellin

Yes. This is just the beginning of the beginning, but the answer is yes. We're across all 3 of them. And the marketing strategies are just starting to come into place, and we'll have a lot more clarity on that in the next 60 to 90 days. But really exciting. I mean not only is it exciting just to have the TVs, but obviously, when you're talking about the likes of VIZIO, right, you also have potential to move into Walmart, right?

And when you're talking about Samsung, you have the opportunity of moving into Android. Again, Samsung was the biggest -- 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 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.

As you know, Brian, once you're in the door and you have contractual relationships, you can really expand to other areas of the business as well. So the distribution is well beyond just TVs that we see and really exciting to have these opportunities. And we've used very tiny numbers, as you know, something like 0.5% to 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. And we expect that fourth quarter, right, as we've said throughout the year. It takes time as you put these in.

People need to see them multiple times, right? They need to experience. They got to see the branding. They got to build a relationship with it. But we see, again, at a very tiny percentage conversion with these partners, just a massive opportunity.

Brian Kinstlinger

I'm going to slip one more in, then I'll 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 and everyone knows that. But is that something new? Is it one quick comment? I wasn't quite sure what to make of it? Or am I drawing maybe a blank on another announcement you had?

Robert Ellin

No. I mean we -- all I said is that it was a 4-year contract, right? We can't give names, as you know. And no different than we originally had our Paramount deal. We couldn't talk about the name for almost -- we didn't talk about it for almost 2 years, and now it's well over $27 million in revenues, right? This could be a massive, massive partnership. And shortly, we fully expect to be able to talk about it in detail.

Craig Christensen

Yes. And I mean 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. So as we've now shrunk the team dramatically, you will see some add-on team members coming shortly, including the President of the company, right, as well as area heads and sales heads of B2B divisions of where we're growing, right, carriers, auto, retailers, et cetera.

Operator

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

Barry Sine

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? And if I was a Netflix subscriber, what would I see from LiveOne? Would I just see podcast? Or is it also music?

Robert Ellin

No. You're just going to see podcast to start, right? But this is my humble opinion. I did a podcast on this. I think it was 3 months ago, and maybe for once I'll be right, right? I came out and said very clearly that I fully expect that every streaming network will move into audio, right? No different than cable and satellite did, right? 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. And I see it as really intellectually smart for them to acquire them, right? You're seeing Netflix doing deals with iHeart. You saw Disney do a deal with iHeart, right? You see Sirius trying to buy iHeart. All this is coming in when you think about it, right, that audio streaming is charging the same price as Netflix is. Right, whether it's Spotify, Apple, they're basically almost the exact same price, except for the differences in audio, the music is already made, right? They don't have the risk of spending $10 billion to $20 billion producing content.

So 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, right? And having an audio network will drive -- give them the ability to raise their ARPUs way more than they can raise in the dollar a year that they're doing today. And I think the same thing on the audio side.

So 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, right? And YouTube, those have a music network, but they're going to go harder into podcasting and then you're going to see the other streaming platforms that are competing with them, right, 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

Okay. And then my second question is around M&A specifically. You said you're close on the deal. And you've talked about criteria where you gave the deal being accretive. Where are you shopping? Are you shopping only in podcasting? I know Kit is always looking for perhaps to pick up companies.

Robert Ellin

No, no, no. We have -- yes. So we brought in Steve Lehman, right? Steve is Vice Chairman of LiveOne, and Steve's background is rolling up audio, right? He's done some video as well, but rolling up audio as a whole. So there's massive opportunities there. And there's a fractured market, right? You're either big or you're small and kind of left out there. We're looking at both, right? From the M&A side is we fully expect another acquisition that will be similar to Slacker and PodcastOne where we acquire it extremely cheaply, right? It fits into our flywheel and it picks up substantial EBITDA for us and is extremely accretive.

At the same time, we are looking at big chess moves that could be anything from a buy to a sell, right? The inbound calls are coming in on a regular basis. You guys are all watching as companies, again, podcast networks were bought up at like 5x to 15x revenues 5 years ago when the industry was a $600 million industry. Now it's a $25 billion industry and growing, right? As video has been added, it's going to continue to grow. And as that happens, I think you're going to see very aggressive moves in the media space. And you've started to see for the first time in 7 years, media stocks really moving, right?

Media stocks have had just a miserable, miserable 7 years. Now you see Starz stock has grown at 3x and iHeart stock was up -- it 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. That data may not just be valuable to other content partners, it could be enormously valued to the AI models, right?

As you're figuring out human behavior, right, 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. And they're not going to be able to get content from the majors, right? You just saw the settlement, right, that Anthropic just did, they paid a staggering $1.2 billion just to the book industry, right, for stealing some books. I imagine what's going to happen and how long it's going to take to settle the film, music, television, right, stuff that has been effectively taken whether intentionally or not by the AI models, right, that is now all blocked.

So I think we're going to have enormous value in the content we have, which content is data. And when you have data, it gives just huge value to these AI models.

Barry Sine

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

Robert Ellin

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. So we're very smartly and very carefully working with our talent, right, because they're a partner in that, right? If it's Dr. Phil or it's Adam Carolla, it's any one of them, we're working with that content. And the same with our music content, which we own, we still have to work with our music partners, right, to monetize that. And we couldn't be more excited about the opportunity.

And just to give you color, I personally invested in the company just a couple of dollars, but I saw a friend of mine who started the company and literally, he's gotten $17 million of contracts upfront just to literally give content from security guards, cleaning people, people washing dishes, washing laundry. This is -- if you're going to build robotics and you're going to build AI, they're going to need a staggering amount of content to keep feeding the system to keep it alive, and we have real content, right?

So what I'm talking about is only for the practice models. Imagine it's worth $100 to $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. So we see a great sign in that, and we fully expect to start to monetize it in the next quarter.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Your next question is from the line of Brian Kinstlinger with Alliance Global Partners.

Brian Kinstlinger

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

Robert Ellin

We're not at liberty to give what the model is today. But you could read -- if you read the 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 it's going to be AI driven, right, and traffic-driven and some of it is going to be paid for, right? It depends on which content it is. You can be sure that you're not going to see us give the likes of a major talent to them, right, without getting -- monetizing it.

And I can just tell you that our video content is probably now 30% of our revenues. I can't give you an exact number on it, but it was 0% when I bought this company, right? So video content is just exploding. 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. And I just see great telltale signs that the TAM of our business is going to explode over the next 3 years.

Brian Kinstlinger

Great. I have 2 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% 3 quarters ago, you were in the 20s for several quarters. Is there any nonrecurring benefits in there? And if so, can you quantify them? Otherwise, is this sustainable?

Craig Christensen

Yes, Brian, you're right. There is some onetime pickups in Q1 in Slacker. As I mentioned in my remarks, that we had an elimination of some liabilities of 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. So yes, there are onetime 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

Yes. Well, that was going to be my next question. We saw the share count jump significantly in the 3 months. Is that related to that stock comp? And how should we think about maybe stock comp and the share count for the remainder of the year?

Robert Ellin

I think we answered that. We've basically given that number, which was around $15 million, right, at $7.5 a share, right? We picked up some great partners with that, Brian, that we've announced, right, and they've announced, right, including a fund that now is part of BMI that owns 7%, 8% of the company now. So it's been great for us. Not only is it great from a balance sheet standpoint, right, but it also is great from having real long-term deals with the music industry, right, which we haven't had in the 8 years since we acquired it because of the payables that existed on the books previously.

So we'll continue to do some deals at $7.5 a share or better. And I fully expect that there'll be more of those as part of that $15 million over the next 60 to 90 days.

Operator

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

Barry Sine

Just as a follow-up on that, on the music partners, the record labels. Now that you've kind of cleaned that up, you 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. And 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?

Robert Ellin

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. And we're in a completely different position than we've been in the last 8 years, right? We've had these massive payables from the acquisition of Slacker in the beginning, right? Now that strengthened cleaned up and so many of the music partners, we signed just about every one of them now.

So we got a couple left to do over the next, as I said, 30 to 90 days. But if we can get that cleaned up, we will certainly be exploring that and looking at that opportunity. And also podcasting is exploding around the world, too, right? So there's a real opportunity with it globally as well to expand that.

Barry Sine

And my last question, you threw out a number that's a pretty significant aspirational number of $250 million in revenue 3 years out. And 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 3 years out?

Robert Ellin

I think we want to get to adjusted EBITDA like we're doing now, right? We've taken our cost structure down. As you know, if COVID didn't hit, we were on our way to $250 million 6 years ago, right? If Tesla didn't change the contract on us, we were on our way to $250 million a year ago, right, and 4 months ago.

So we're back on track now. We're highly confident, right? And when you talk about $10 trillion worth of companies that we're in partnerships with, we just got to keep growing them, right? Paramount could grow. It's growing from $2 million to over $27 million. Amazon is growing literally just starting off as a test is now growing to $20 million, right? We're now in a position with 10, 12, 14 partners that all have -- they're all multibillion- to trillion-dollar companies. We just got to execute, right? We got to execute. We got to deliver for them, and we got to continue to sign more and more of those partnerships. And then it's just the numbers game.

The bigger their distribution partners are, right, the more traffic we're going to get, the more revenues we're going to drive. When you go on to a Netflix as an example, right, you put a couple of shows on the start, you got 700 million subscribers right around the world, right? I can't tell you exactly what that number is going to be day 1, but there's going to be some numbers, right? And so that's just the beginning. When you control that, right, that environment, when we go to 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, right? Our subscription revenues all of a sudden have ramped up with one of our big podcasters, which starting to be a real number every month. And I just see that is just a big opportunity for us to grow. And 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's always going to be audio, right? There's still going to be 2 hours a day in a car. There's going to be usage on mobile. It's hard to watch as much on a mobile device as you're going to listen on a mobile device. I think we're right in the sweet spot. And I think with Craig's help and a new President of the company, right, and a couple of more B2B people, $250 million is very achievable over the next 3 years.

Operator

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

Robert Ellin

Well I think I've said everything today, very humbly, right? We are humbled by where our stock is today. We're 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 $7 couldn't break those levels. But we're going to keep buying back stock. We're 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, and we're going to continue to build massive real partnerships with billion- to trillion-dollar companies.

And again, I just want to thank everyone for their patience. We're right there next year. We'll be buying stock as soon as the restriction is off, as soon as we get legal restriction off, which is any day now, we'll continue to buy more stock. And I just couldn't be more proud of my team and what we got accomplished in this year, but just in this quarter, it is just amazing to see $7 million added net equity, $3 million of extra cash. This is just a telltale sign of where we're going, and we're going to continue to grow these things.

So 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.