Audioboom, the London-listed podcast company behind No Such Thing As A Fish and the UK network Adelicious, told the stock market on Wednesday 14 October that it had just had its best third quarter ever. Revenue rose 17 per cent to 23.8 million dollars, adjusted profit nearly doubled, and the board raised its forecast for the full year. The shares rose on the day, and the company said it now has about 20 million dollars of cash and borrowing available to buy other podcast businesses.
That last line is the real story. Four months ago Audioboom turned down three takeover offers because it thought they undervalued the company. A week ago it lost two of its biggest true crime shows to SiriusXM. On Wednesday it answered both with a set of numbers and a plan: three or four acquisitions over the medium term, and a stated intention to lead the consolidation of the podcast industry rather than be swallowed by it. For British networks and independent shows, that makes Audioboom the most likely buyer in the market.
What the trading update says
The figures come from the company’s regulatory announcement, so they are the firm’s own numbers rather than a reporter’s estimate, although a quarterly trading update is unaudited. For the three months to 30 September, revenue was 23.8 million dollars against 20.3 million a year earlier. Gross profit rose 30 per cent to 5.6 million dollars. Adjusted EBITDA, the profit measure the company prefers, rose 89 per cent to 2.2 million dollars, taking the margin from 6 to 9 per cent.
For the nine months of 2026 so far, revenue is 69.5 million dollars, up 25 per cent, and adjusted EBITDA is 5.5 million, up 84 per cent. The board now expects at least 7.7 million dollars of adjusted EBITDA for the full year, which it says is ahead of market expectations. AJ Bell’s market report puts last year’s figure at 5.1 million dollars and recorded the shares up 1.9 per cent at 514.7 pence in early afternoon trading. Other outlets reported a rise closer to 3 per cent at different points in the day.
Audience volume grew faster than money. Average monthly downloads and video views reached 190 million in the quarter, up 47 per cent from 130 million, which the company attributes to video podcasts and partnerships signed this year. Showcase, its advertising marketplace that sells ads across shows it does not own, grew 20 per cent to 9.7 million dollars. The company also renewed The Broski Report and Let’s Not Meet and signed Pionaire Network and Brand Safe.
What the company said, and what it left out
Chief executive Stuart Last credited the margin gains to better revenue share terms with podcasters, higher-margin advertising products and cost savings from folding in Adelicious, the UK network Audioboom agreed to buy in July 2025 for up to 10 million pounds. He said monthly operating costs are now held at about 1.1 million dollars. He also said Showcase had a strong September thanks to “the first meaningful wave of political advertising spend ahead of the US midterm elections,” with its politics and news network offering roughly a quarter of a billion ad impressions a month, and that he expects that spending to build through the fourth quarter.
The update does not mention Serialously or 10 to Life, the Annie Elise shows SiriusXM announced it had taken on 6 October, which we covered last week ahead of these results. Those shows left after the quarter closed, so their absence from the Q3 figures is correct. Their absence from the outlook is more telling. Our reading is that the company is choosing to talk about what it is adding rather than what it is losing, and that the 190 million monthly figure will be the number to check next quarter.
There is a quieter caveat in the word “record”. The trade site PPC Land points out that the fourth quarter of 2025 brought in about 24.9 million dollars of revenue, more than this quarter, so the claim is a record for a third quarter rather than for any quarter. It also notes that revenue growth has slowed from 30 per cent in the first quarter to 17 per cent now, while downloads grew 47 per cent, which means Audioboom is earning less per download than it was. The company has not published a revenue-per-download figure for the quarter.
How the mechanics of the business are changing
Audioboom’s model is to host and sell advertising for shows it does not make, keeping a share of the ad revenue. The quarter shows what that model does when volume rises faster than cost: a 3.5 million dollar increase in revenue became a 1 million dollar increase in profit. The company calls this an incremental margin above 25 per cent. The same arithmetic runs in reverse when a big show walks, which is why losing two top-20 US true crime podcasts to SiriusXM matters more than their share of downloads suggests.
The answer the company gives is scale through acquisition. It ended September with 6.7 million dollars of cash, up from 2.9 million a year earlier, and has confirmed a new 10 million dollar revolving credit facility on top of a 3.4 million dollar overdraft. Last said the facility gives Audioboom “the capital and flexibility to lead the inevitable consolidation within the podcast industry,” with a target of three to four meaningful transactions. None has been named, and the company has not said whether it is looking in Britain, the United States or both.
The likely targets, in our view, are networks that look like Adelicious did: a UK or US sales house with a roster of mid-sized shows, a thin margin and no easy route to the American advertising market on its own. Audioboom already describes itself as the fifth-largest podcast publisher in the United States by Edison Research’s ranking and says it reaches 58 million unique listeners a month. Buying a network adds downloads to Showcase without adding much cost, which is exactly the lever the update is built around.
What it means for UK shows and advertisers
For a British independent podcast, the practical consequence is that one of the few homegrown companies with money to spend is now openly in the market. Adelicious was sold as the way to build the largest UK-owned podcast network, and a second UK deal would strengthen that position against Acast, Global and Goalhanger, which is taking its own advertising sales in-house from 2027. A show on a small network that gets bought could find itself sold into an American marketplace alongside the big true crime podcasts that make up much of Audioboom’s volume, with the revenue share that implies.
For UK advertisers the update is a reminder of how American the company has become. The political spending that lifted September is US midterm money, and nothing like it exists in Britain. Showcase’s growth has slowed from the pace earlier this year, and the company’s confidence for the fourth quarter rests on that American election cycle continuing to build. If it does, the full-year floor of 7.7 million dollars needs only a repeat of this quarter’s profit to be met, which is a modest ask. If it does not, the margin story becomes harder to tell.
For shareholders the question is whether the numbers justify the decision in June to reject three cash offers, each above the 540 pence share price at the time. At 514.7 pence after the update, the market is still pricing the company below the offers it refused. The board’s case is that a year of record quarters and a consolidation strategy are worth more than a sale now. That is a bet on execution, and the first acquisition will be the first test of it.
What to watch next
Audioboom’s full-year results, due early in 2027, will show whether the fourth quarter delivered the political spend the company is counting on and whether the lost true crime shows dented the download figure. Before then, any announcement of a first acquisition will tell the industry which end of the market Audioboom is buying in. That announcement, more than any quarterly figure, is what will decide whether a London-listed company with a market value below its own rejected offers can become the consolidator it says it wants to be.
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