LiveOne - Q1 2025
August 13, 2024
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Hello, and welcome to the LiveOne Incorporated Q1 Fiscal 2025 Financial Results and Business Update Webcast. My name is Elliot, and I'll be coordinating your call today. If you would like to register a question during today's events, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand over to Aaron Sullivan, CFO. Please go ahead.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to LiveOne's business update and financial results conference call for the company's first quarter ended June 30, 2024. Presenting on today's call with me is Rob Ellin, CEO and Chairman 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, 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 these forward-looking statements, including those described in its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2024, 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 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 13, 2024. Unless required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise this information after the date of the call.
I'd like to highlight to investors that the call is being recorded. The company is making 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 express written consent is strictly prohibited. Now, I would like to turn the call over to LiveOne CEO, Rob Ellin.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Thank you, Aaron, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm thrilled to share the outstanding progress and success that LiveOne has achieved, driven by our unwavering commitment to a creator-first model. Our audio division, comprising of Slacker Radio and PodcastOne, we reached incredible milestones in Q1 of fiscal 2025.
We achieved a record-breaking $31.9 million in revenues and $5.1 million in adjusted EBITDA, demonstrating the strength of our business strategy and execution. Looking ahead, we project a phenomenal year, 2025 for our audio division, which anticipated revenue of $130 million-$140 million and adjusted EBIT ranging from $20 million-$25 million. Our solid foundation and exciting opportunities position us for continued growth.
Under Brad Conkle's leadership, Slacker Radio has experienced remarkable growth, starting with our great partnership with Tesla, remaining and continue to grow that partnership. We added Bill Richards six, almost seven months ago, formerly headed up a division of Microsoft, doing over hundreds of millions of dollars of B2B deals. He has crafted a strategic roadmap for B2B partnerships, securing and signing four major additional deals with 63 potential partnerships in the pipeline.
We're anticipating closing multiple partnerships with market cap companies ranging from $1 billion to $1 trillion before this year ends. Based on a huge success, signing five major additional partnerships, including a $24 million partnership with one of the largest streaming networks, a Fortune 250 company, which is adding about $2 million in revenues a month.
We've expanded our B2B team from 1 to 6 professionals and now aggressively moving to hire ahead of each vertical. We fully expect to have a team of over 10 people leading the charge in our B2B area. Our membership growth continues to grow steadily, increasing from 3.7 million to 3.9 million.
We maintain cost-efficient marketing, spending less than $1 million this year with very little breakage, the lowest by far in the industry. PodcastOne, led by Kit Gray, is seeing tremendous success, signing 37 new podcasts and in the last 12 months, bringing our total to 187,000... 187 podcasts. We've sold a second major show to a streaming partner that is moving our podcast from podcasting to television and film.
There's a unique amount of money that will be coming in from those television shows over the next couple of years. Our publishing business, led by Josh Hallbauer, grew 300% and earned two Grammys. We partnered with Kartoon Studios to produce and publish and distribute original programming for Winnie-the-Pooh, the mega brand, funded with over $30 million.
Our celebrity brands division, led by Sarah D., is set to introduce 10-12 celebrity brands over the next 12 months, including Birthday Sex, Chardonnay with Jeremih, and Smyle Coffee with Kyle. We're expanding our stock buyback again to $12 million. We've purchased over 4.4 million shares of stock and extinguished those, leaving us with additional $6.3 million dedicated to the program.
This move underscores our confidence in the company's future and a commitment to enhancing shareholder value. In conclusion, we believe our stock remains extremely undervalued, given our impressive growth and unlimited future prospects. We're confident in our direction and excited about what lies ahead. Thank you, everyone, for your support and belief in LiveOne. I'm now gonna hand it over to Aaron Sullivan to review the Q1 results.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Thanks, Rob. I'll spend just a minute providing a very brief overview of our results for the first quarter of fiscal 2025 and at June 30, 2024. Consolidated revenue for the three-month period ended June 30, 2024, was $33.1 million. Slacker posted record revenue for Q1 of $18.7 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 million. PodcastOne posted record revenue of $13.2 million, and with an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $300,000.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2025, revenue consists of 56% membership and 44% advertising, sponsorship, and merchandising and other, compared to 54% membership and 46% advertising, sponsorship, and merchandise in the prior year period. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA for Q1, fiscal 2024 was $2.9 million.
On a U.S. GAAP basis, LiveOne posted a consolidated net loss of $1.7 million, or $0.02 per diluted share in Q1 of fiscal 2025. As of June 30, 2024, total members, which include free members, were approximately 3.9 million. Note that included in total members are certain members who are currently subject to a contractual dispute for which we are not currently recognizing revenue. Rob, I'll turn it back to you.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Great. Great, Aaron, and thank you for, for the great job you've done. Just, just to wrap it up, real focus right now is on those B2B partnerships. That first $24 million deal, the revenues are just kicking in. We're seeing the growth in our revenues, we're seeing our growth in our EBITDA, and we're seeing the opportunity that these B2B deals, and we could go on a hot streak here.
And as we do, these are major companies. These are $1 billion-$1 trillion companies, major verticals across auto, obviously with Tesla expanding into other auto companies, carriers, carriers around the world, merchandise businesses, retailers, hotels, airlines. There's so many opportunities right now, and the team has really put together a fabulous lineup, and that's why we're gonna expand the team.
We're gonna grow the team for the first time in almost four years, and we're gonna focus all that energy on those big $20 million+ partnerships with major partners across those verticals. So I wanna thank everyone for joining and open it up for any questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Brian Kinstlinger with AGP. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
Great, thanks for taking my questions. It's great to see the solid sequential growth in podcast revenue. And you mentioned that the B2B partnership kicking in, and beginning to have a material impact, sounds at about $2 million a quarter, I think you said. I'm curious, how much more does that partnership have to go in terms of reaching the peak run rate?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. So we don't give the exact numbers, Brian, on it, but this is, you know, it started in November and scales up. So I think you'll see that revenue growth in each quarter going forward, and, you know, we couldn't be more excited about the partnership and the opportunity to get much bigger, right?
This is the beginning of putting our content across its large streaming platforms, and I think it's so critical that, you know, the cost of content has become so expensive that, you know, it's almost a $1 million and $1.6 million an hour of content. And the beauty of our content is we have AAA content with the biggest social media stars in the world, right? It costs us under $3,000 an hour.
So we have the opportunity to really grow that, and I see this as the first of many streaming partners and streaming networks. When you think about music choice on cable or satellite, and how many channels were audio, let alone video, and you think about MTV and country music channels and all, there really is no thought leader in music anymore, and we have an opportunity to really be that thought leader across audio and video.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
Great. Then as it relates, I think, so correct me if I'm wrong, the $24 million B2B partnership you just mentioned, and it was on podcast press release, that's the one that was pending on the last call, and that's in addition to the other one that's ramping. Is that right? And if that is right, can you comment on details such as, is that $24 million over some period of time? And you know, how long do you think before that begins to ramp?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. Let's be a little bit careful on that. We're gonna have a lot more details, you know, shortly on the next partnership, and we'll provide that publicly in the very near future. And I think it won't just be one, you know, as we stated, you know, earlier, we've now signed four additional major partnerships, and we'll have some real clarity on that coming over the next couple of weeks.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
... But just to be clear, that is $24 million partnership, because it just happened to be the same number. I want to be clear, that's different than the twenty-four-
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yep
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
$1 million one from November, right?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
No, no, that's, that's the same one. That started in November, it is growing and it's scaling up.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
Ah, okay. And then, can you speak maybe to the inventory fill rates of podcast? I guess the heart of the question is, on today's viewership or listeners, sorry, on podcast, you know, where could how much better could the inventory fill rates become as you, you know, win lots of these partnerships?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Aaron, you want to take that?
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Yeah, I think, you know, we're seeing consistency in our kind of fill rates in terms of what we're able to sell through to partners. So, you know, we will try to optimize that. You know, the quicker way to revenue, though, is to just increase the available inventory, right? And that's kinda what we're working towards. Yeah, I think I'll leave it with that. Rob, if you have anything to add.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, I'm not sure I followed the exact question. I think, I think what you're articulating with these, these additional B2B deals, is not just inventory, this is, this is traffic and audience, right? As we spread our tentacles, right, and spread it off across a Fortune 250 company, right, with a massive streaming network, we're getting more eyeballs onto our, ours. The more traffic, the more audience, the more advertising we're gonna get. And I think that answers it, Brian, but I'm not sure I understood fully your question.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
Yep. No, yeah, we'll take it offline. Perfect. Only my last question is, how aggressive are you advertising to increase, you know, your market share or, or growth in downloads and unique listeners?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
How aggressive? Say that one more time.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
I guess I'm just curious, is the budget increasing? I mean, what, how are you acquiring new listeners?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, the budget is not yields. The beauty of this, of course, Spotify app. Will to continue and with TikTok multiple times, and, you know, those opportunities to keep getting our content into new places, where already the distribution and the traffic is built, is really the key. And part of the beauty is 'cause we own our own technology, right? And all those revenues come for us, right? The more traffic, the more audience, the more revenues we derive.
Brian Kinstlinger (Director of Research and Head of Technology Research)
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We now turn to Barry Sine with Hills Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Morning, yeah, gentlemen. How are you?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Absolutely, Barry.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Can you hear me?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Good to hear your voice.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Okay. Okay, likewise. On the $63 million pipeline, I wonder if we can get a little more breakdown on that. Rob, you mentioned a number of different verticals. You're hiring senior managers for each of the verticals. How does that pipeline break down by vertical? And within that pipeline, how many of those have you tendered a contract to, you know, so you're, you know, far along in the process? Could you give us a little more visibility on that pipeline?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I don't know if I can get much deeper than that from a legal standpoint, but what I can tell you this is, is, you know, A, we absolutely will have additional auto companies this year, right? Number two is because our balance sheet and all the debt was converted at $2.10, right?
Our balance sheet is, is pretty pristine now and very cheap. It gives us the opportunity to expand globally, right? So we have opportunities with carriers around the globe. I love the opportunity. Love, love, love, and couldn't be more excited about where we're going with retail, right? The opportunity that you're watching Amazon, right? And Amazon has so much rich media.
Everyone from Best Buy to Walmart to Costco, all came, all the retailers must have, right, that are competing in the digital world, right? Must have content. And you're seeing that happen, and, you know, starting to see some of my thoughts, you know, come to fruition as you saw Walmart buy Vizio for $2.3 billion. It only sold for $230 million only three years ago, right? When Charlie Collier bought it.
Now they're paying $2.3 billion for it. That's the first telltale sign they're gonna compete head on with Amazon, and they're gonna create their own content like Amazon Prime. And I see the same thing across all the retailers, really exciting. In terms of hotels and airlines and loyalty programs, really just, you know, massive opportunity for our company.
We're one of 10 DSPs in the world. We're the third fastest growing. We've got this very unique content and proving more and more original content, like the event we're doing tonight, right? You're gonna have more and more original content from music, right, to podcasting, to podcasts turning to television shows, that I think that more and more networks are going to use, need our content.
And so I'm really excited about where that's going. And, yeah, that 63 deals, we're, there's way more than that in the sort of pipeline. These are the ones that we think have really moved along, that are in shape, that have an opportunity to close in the next 12 months.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Then continuing on that, I believe you've said that there are 4 deals that are actually signed. You can't discuss who they are, but as they go live, we'll see press releases, you know, with announcements on those. Any update on that process?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Oh, yeah, it's coming. So, you know, again, those will... We said before year-end, that's coming, so the year is coming fast, right? And so you're going to see announcements on each one of those shortly. And, you know, when you're talking about billion to trillion, multi-trillion dollar partners, right?
You got to be careful what they're going to let you say and how much the detail they're going to give in it, right? But for us, as you can imagine, these are very meaningful, right? Every $20 million deal, if, you know, four more deals hit, right, and we had those four deals, even if they're half the size of the last one, that's going to put us in the $200 million range next year.
What I've told the Street is, you know, our goal is to get to 10 million subscribers. At 10 million subscribers, we'll be doing $500 million in revenues and, you know, $150 million in EBITDA. And that's the goal over the next couple of years.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
And then I wanted to pick up on the word you've used a couple times on the call, which is globally. In your script, you talk about serving carriers globally, and then a minute ago, in response to my question, you cited the balance sheet cleanup that will allow you to go global. So that's been a long-term aspiration of the company to get global streaming rights. And one of the things I believe that kicks in almost automatically is Tesla, automatically. So is that what you're alluding to, is that you're closer to getting, music streaming rights on a, a global or at least European basis? And what would the implications of that be?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
You know, I'm hoping you'll see very shortly and, you know, this is—we've gone through some, you know, some tough times here. We had to survive COVID. We lost our entire live business. We were inches away from having all those licenses and moving overseas then, but it was unaffordable, right? You know, post-COVID, we lost, you know, 30% of our revenues and a big part of the growth story of the company.
We had to pivot it, right, and turn it. We've—this team has just done a magical job of fighting through, you know, adversity and difficult times, and we've proven we're going to survive it. But not only are we going to survive, we're going to expand around the globe. And for anyone that knows me, my last two companies, including Digital Turbine, was built off the backs of carriers, right, overseas. Right?
We have tremendous relationships over there. So it's, it's definitely in the forefront of, of positioning where the company is going. And absolutely, if you look at all the, you know, if you look at all the memberships, whether it's Netflix or it's Spotify, half their revenues come in the U.S., and half come overseas, right? We have 25-28% of our traffic is overseas. We're not deriving any revenues from it. But it had to be affordable, it had to make sense, and now is the time where we're, we're ready and in way better position to be able to do that. And I think you'll start to see long-term deals with, with, with our partners, right? Our existing partners.
Not only those 63, right there in the pipeline, but also our existing partners start to see for the first time long-term partnerships and expansion of where our content can live.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Okay, that's great. And then my last question, you just alluded to my last question. You started to mention live events, and I know in the early, you know, part, history of the company, pre-COVID, that was, you know, the main event, live events. I saw, and I thought it was interesting that you put a press release out, you're doing a live event in the Hamptons. And previously, what you've said is that you would not do live events unless they were profitable and you would need to get a sponsor to do that. So are we, as the company, dipping its toes back in the water on live events, and does that mean you've found a way to do this more profitably?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the event that we're doing tonight, we have great sponsors from E11EVEN Vodka on, right? We're positioning ourselves again that we've proven, right, and Josh Hallbauer, who runs our music, has proven, you know, we had Teddy Swims play at our studio in Beverly Hills, right? And the next thing you know, you know, after seeing him on a streaming platform, the guy becomes one of the biggest stars in the world, right? We had the Kid LAROI before anyone heard of him. So we're going back to our thesis that as a thought leader in music, it is critical to be a thought leader in not just audio, but video.
You know, now that we have the resources, right, and we obviously have the relationships with the talent as well as the industry, this is the time to really step on the gas. You're going to watch something pretty spectacular tonight. You're going to see 12 artists perform of all genre of music. You're going to see one of the greatest pianists, classical pianists, play all the way up, all the way up to the Main Squeeze.
In between, you're going to see, you know, some of the great R&B and hip hop artists performing. It's going to be a really special night, and our talent is getting closer to our company, as you can see by these celebrity deals, right? These celebrity partnerships. We don't only want to be able to derive revenues just by putting music up.
We're starting to own products in conjunction with that talent. You know, I'm really proud of the team and what they've done. Sarah, who's joined us, is head of our celebrity brands, brings a unique talent to the company, unique skill, driving massive revenues. She was at White Claw when they were doing $600,000 in revenues. I think she left when they were doing about $4 billion. We see a huge opportunity to be able to drive more and more revenues off of those relationships with podcasters, as well as with social media stars, including artists.
Barry Sine (Analyst)
Okay, that's my questions. Congratulations on a great quarter, guys.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Thanks, Barry, and thanks for your support.
Operator (participant)
We now turn to Sean McGowan with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
Thank you. I apologize if these questions have been asked, but I got dropped from the call a couple of times. First, Aaron, on cost of sales seems to be a little higher than we had expected, particularly at PodcastOne. Can you talk about what's driving that?
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Yeah. Hi, Sean, how are you? Yeah, so, you know, our content acquisition costs have been a little bit higher than we anticipated. That's kind of, you know, the upfront cost to signing some of these deals and new podcasts. You know, going forward, we expect it to level out over the next couple of quarters, about where we're at today, and then, you know, start to improve from there.
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and tying that, but you know, a question for Rob then: Is this surprising to you? I thought we were in an environment where it was actually gonna be easier to pick up, you know, shows that were either getting dropped or not getting renewed on the same terms from other networks. Is that proving not to be the case or less so the case than you had expected?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
No. No, it's actually really exciting. I mean, we're just signing so many podcasts. We're announcing one almost every week, and there's a cost to it, right? The way that it works, Sean, in podcasting, you and I have talked about this a little bit, is you sign the podcast, right? You pay them some money, right?
They even if they start doing the podcast the next morning, you're paying them for the next three months, and you're not collecting back your money for three to four months. So there's a window of time. So I would say that, you know, you know, Aaron hit it right on the nose, but it's really, it's really exciting how many, how many podcasts we're signing. And they're adding about $350,000-$500,000 on average per revenue. Every single one of these podcasts is a joint.
So there's gonna be a little cost to it in the beginning, but can't really be better than growing the revenues right now and doing that. And we'll get that in the back end. We'll get those back in the back end when we start to get paid by the advertisers.
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
So it's not so much that you have to pay more per podcast to get them, it's just that you're signing more than you had expected to, so that's why the cost is higher?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, there's-
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
Okay.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
There's been some really exciting, you know, signings as well. Yeah, you know, there's a little bit of money that's got to go out the door day one.
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
Mm-hmm. Okay, got it. And then in terms of, you know, you talked, you talked a lot about these deals that you're in the process with and signing and, you know, lining up more partners. So is your strategy then to only update or improve or increase the revenue guidance once the deals are signed? Because, you know, I would have thought that if you're signing new deals and you've closed on some others, maybe you'd increase the revenue guidance. Is it you're just gonna wait until they're nailed down?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Well, I think you know, the guidance is a good number right now, and we're going to... As we announce the next B2B deals, right, again, the more, the bigger our distribution is, the bigger our audience is, right, the more revenues we're gonna drive. So I'd be surprised if we don't raise those guidance again at the end of next quarter, but you know, let's look carefully. This is great growth, spectacular growth for PodcastOne, and let's look at that number again at the end of this quarter and you know, and really make sure that we're gonna beat the number. Right? It's a tough market out there, as you know. We wanna make sure we beat the numbers.
Sean McGowan (Managing Director)
Mm-hmm. Thanks. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
We now turn to John Livirakis with Livirakis Financial. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
John Livirakis (Founder and CEO)
Hey, guys. Congratulations on a strong quarter and, sorry for the technical problems on the conference call with Sean. That's, there were some issues. But anyway, excellent presentation. Quick question for you. So, at one time, the company disclosed its relationship with JPMorgan to represent them in strategic dialogue. Any comments you wanna make on, on, what your plans are there and how it's progressing?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, I mean, we've always been an acquisition vehicle, and we've been hampered, you know, over the last couple of years from doing that. With, you know, all the different difficulties that have been out there. This is certainly a time that, you know, both offensively and defensively, we're continuing to aggressively explore, and are extremely excited about the opportunities that are out there, right?
And, you know, as we keep moving up the ladder, we're number 11 in the world in podcasting. We're number 10 in audio, right? We're certainly a candidate, and so could come aggressively try to buy us, but we're also looking at some great assets, that media assets have been decimated, you know, and probably even more on the public side than the private.
There's some great assets out there that we will aggressively look at. If we can find another Slacker, we can find another PodcastOne, we bought both of those companies doing $20 million in revenues, right? Slacker is now at a run rate to do $85 million, right? We bought PodcastOne doing $20 million.
It's now on a run rate to do over $50 million. If we can find another great asset that is accretive to us and fits in with, with the team and the skills that we have. We are absolutely aggressively looking on both sides, both offensively and defensively, and, you know, the entire JPMorgan team is coming in for, for the event tonight. So we're deep in the trenches with them on a regular basis, on all the excitement and energy around both sides, both offensively and defensively.
John Livirakis (Founder and CEO)
Sounds great. The Slacker acquisition looks to be brilliant, and what a job that Brad's been doing, and any quick comment on that? You mentioned 63 B2B contracts in a pipeline, but actually, now you're saying that that's really the core opportunities, and there's vastly more than that in a pipeline. That's an interesting comment. And what's the intellectual property there that... How many patents do you have, and what- how that differentiates from the rest? Seems to be really taking off that business, its unique model, et cetera.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, well, yeah, we've over 40 patents. I think, you know, from a patent standpoint, you know, we're one of the thought leaders in the space. I think from, from a, from the standpoint of our IP, this is the first time we're starting to showcase how valuable our IP could be. And just, just think about, think about taking a podcast, right? And, you know, and I said Varnamtown would be a bidding war, right?
We just sold the rights to it, and we'll talk about who the partner is very shortly, right? And in taking a podcast, that cost us almost no money, right? You know, literally limited money and now selling it to television. They're very serious money. My background previously and my team's background, we've made a lot of movies, we've made a lot of television shows.
The cost is zero to us going forward. So when you own that IP, and you get a second window of money, that could be staggering, right? And, you know, I said we're gonna sell one a year for the next couple of years.
Now, we've sold two this year. If we could sell two a year, could be tens of millions of dollars in profits, let alone, let alone, you know, revenues, but profits that come to the company over the next few years with no additional cost to us. And just to give you an idea on both Vigilante and Varnamtown, you know, their streaming partners are gonna be in. By the time, you know, we turn the corner, Vigilante, they've already spent well over $1 million on.
Varnamtown will be well over $1 million shortly, that, you know, these studios are spending money on. And because we have a proven... Not only do we have proven IP, but on top of having the IP, we have proof that there's an audience. When we go into those negotiations, we go with a very different bullet than you go in when you're just going in and you got a book or a script or great story.
I see really, really super opportunities and excitement around that. And, you know, for anyone that doesn't know, I owned Atmosphere Films previously and was fortunate enough to have the movie 300 and Spiderwick Chronicles. And when the studios are paying for these things, you never know how they can go, and 300 ended up doing, you know, $1.1 billion in revenues.
So we're really energized about owning our own IP, and it's kinda this team's skill, is owning our own IP.
John Livirakis (Founder and CEO)
Great. Thank you, Rob.
Operator (participant)
We now turn to Saken Ismailov. Sorry, a private investor. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Saken, your line is open.
Speaker 7
Sorry, I was muted. Thank you all for your presentation, and congratulations on your remarkable, remarkable results. Most of my questions already been answered, but I still have some questions. First of all, I noticed that your general and administrative costs are quite increased. Could you explain it? How could you spend those costs?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Aaron, you want to take it? I'm having a little trouble hearing.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
I'll take that one. Yeah, I think the question was, our G&A expenses have increased? So yeah, the-
Speaker 7
Yeah, that's right.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Two drivers to that. One is additional stock-based compensation. We've had some ex-executive contracts that have some stock-based comp in them, and that's kind of across the business unit. And then specifically, as it relates to PodcastOne, and this is kind of included in consolidated results as well, there's additional G&A just as it's a separate public entity, so you've got additional legal, accounting, and just you know general public company expenses. That's really what's driving the increase in G&A.
Speaker 7
So, there's no extraordinary costs included there?
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Can you repeat that?
Speaker 7
Were some extraordinary costs included in G&A costs?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, I-
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
I think that was-
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
I think if we can hear you right, it's really... Yeah, I think it's really hard to hear you, but, you know, just to answer you, Aaron and our finance team have done a brilliant job in that we're filing two audited financials, right? So there's additional costs there, both legal and accounting for both the public companies, LiveOne and PodcastOne, and then we also explored the opportunity of doing a SPAC with Slacker Radio, right?
And so there was also additional costs of doing the audits on Slacker. So, you know, stay tuned on that, you know, there'll be some excitement and energy around that as well. But there is additional both legal and accounting costs to this.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you. And one more question. Is that revenue from audio division maybe in some extent explained by seasonal factor? Is there any seasonal factor in your audio division revenue?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Can you try that one more time?
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
I think-
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
I really apologize.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
I think the question-
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
It's so muffled in here.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Is there seasonal pressure across the business units?
Speaker 7
Seasonal factor.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
I think that was the question. And... Seasonal factors?
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, we don't... You know, we have some sea-- You got it, Aaron.
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
Go ahead, Rob. All right, so I'll take it.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Let me-
Aaron Sullivan (CFO)
So, in our merchandise business and in podcast, our Q3, which is fiscal Q3 or calendar Q4, that's our largest quarter. But other than that, you know, our subscription business, no seasonality there, and that kind of even things out a little bit.
Speaker 7
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We have no further questions. I'm going to hand back to Robert Ellin for any final remarks.
Robert S. Ellin (CEO and Chairman)
Yeah, I think we covered a lot today. I think we covered a lot in the earnings and how spectacular the numbers were. I want to thank everyone for joining and thank everyone for the support. We look forward to updating everyone very shortly on some major B2B partnerships. Those 4 that we have already signed will be announced shortly, and there'll be more to come. So thank you, everyone, and appreciate it, and we look forward to the next call.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We'd like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.