- Audioboom Group’s adjusted losses before unpleasantness amounted to $396,000 in 2023
- The company lost true crime podcast Morbid to rival Wondery two years ago
Audioboom Group Actions plunged on Monday after the company suffered an annual loss due to a weaker advertising market and the loss of a popular podcast.
The AIM-listed podcast developer revealed that adjusted losses before unpleasantness amounted to $396,000 in 2023, compared to positive profits of $3.59 million a year earlier.
This was despite the company’s viewing figures and average monthly downloads of its shows rising to a record 38 million and 121.9 million, respectively.
Loss: Podcast developer Audioboom revealed that its adjusted losses before unpleasantness amounted to $396,000 in 2023, compared to positive profits of $3.59 million the previous year.
Audioboom’s revenue fell nearly $10 million to $65 million as a weakening economic backdrop led companies to further reduce their marketing budgets.
Revenue also declined following the release of the hugely popular American true crime anthology Morbid to rival Wondery in May 2022.
Before its transfer, Morbid was downloaded 30 million times a month and generated about a fifth of Audioboom’s sales.
As a result, Audioboom shares fell 10.7 per cent to £2.70 late on Monday afternoon, meaning they are down around 90 per cent since hitting their peak in April 2022.
However, the London-based company believes 2024 will be a record year thanks to a strong first-quarter performance and expectations that revenue and profit growth will expand in the coming months.
In the first three months of this year, Audioboom’s average revenue per 1,000 downloads increased 27 percent to $52.17, helping total sales increase 11 percent to $17.1 million.
During the period, the group renewed contracts with shows such as Crime Weekly, The Tim Dillon Show and Real Ghost Stories.
He also signed deals with the comedy show Soder, the history podcast Omnibus and George Conway Explains It All to Sarah Longwell, whose two hosts discuss the legal cases facing former US President Donald Trump.
Audioboom CEO Stuart Last said 2024 “has started exactly as we expected, continuing the positive momentum of the final quarter of last year.”
Founded in 2009, Audioboom is the fourth-largest podcast publisher in the United States, with an average of 5.6 million weekly users, according to advertising group Triton Digital.
The company produces the official podcasts for Formula One racing series, such as F1: Beyond the Grid and F1 Nation.
Other shows on its network include Truth vs Hollywood, Sue Perkins: An Hour or So With and No Such Thing as a Fish, presented by the research team behind BBC comedy show QI.