Audioboom, the London-listed podcast company, on October 14 told investors it now expects adjusted EBITDA of at least US$7.7 million for 2026, after a third quarter in which revenue rose 17% to US$23.8 million and adjusted EBITDA climbed 89% to US$2.2 million. The quarter ended September 30, 2026, and the company said September brought the first meaningful wave of political advertising ahead of the US midterm elections on November 3.

In Short

Audioboom, a company that sells ads in podcasts, made more money in July, August and September than in the same months of 2025, and kept more of each dollar for itself. It now says its 2026 profit before interest, tax and certain charges will be at least $7.7 million, which matters for the advertisers and podcasters who depend on its ad marketplace. The company is counting on US election ads and on buying other podcast businesses to keep growing.

The quarter in numbers

The headline figures come from Audioboom's trading update for the three months to September 30, 2026, distributed through Podnews and dated October 14. Audioboom trades on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market under the ticker BOOM and reports in US dollars.

Revenue for the quarter reached US$23.8 million, according to Audioboom, up 17% from US$20.3 million in the third quarter of 2025. Gross profit rose faster, by 30%, to US$5.6 million from US$4.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA reached US$2.2 million, up 89% from US$1.2 million.

Margins widened at both levels. Gross margin was 23% in the quarter, against 21% a year earlier, according to the company. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 9%, up from 6%.

Over nine months the growth was steeper still. Revenue for January to September came to US$69.5 million, up 25% from US$55.5 million, according to Audioboom. Gross profit reached US$15.5 million, up 32% from US$11.7 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached US$5.5 million, up 84% from US$3.0 million.

There is a detail in those comparisons worth noting. Dividing the rounded Q3 EBITDA figures, US$2.2 million over US$1.2 million, gives growth of about 83%, not 89%; the nine-month figures give about 83% against the stated 84%. The gap almost certainly comes from rounding to one decimal place in the release, with the percentages calculated on unrounded numbers that Audioboom did not publish. The update does not say whether the figures are audited, and it gives no reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA to statutory operating profit. Trading updates of this kind on AIM are normally unaudited and precede full results.

The prior-year comparison has also moved slightly. When Audioboom reported its third quarter of 2025, PPC Land reported revenue of US$20.4 million, up 18%. The new update uses US$20.3 million as the base for that same quarter. The release does not explain the US$0.1 million difference.

A record third quarter, not a record quarter

Audioboom describes the period as a "Record Q3" and says it delivered a record performance "in all key financial metrics." The qualifier matters. In the fourth quarter of 2025, Audioboom reported revenue of about US$24.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of about US$2.2 million, a 9% margin. On revenue, the latest quarter at US$23.8 million sits below that level. On adjusted EBITDA and margin, it matches it.

The pace of growth has also eased through the year. Audioboom's first quarter of 2026 brought revenue of US$22.5 million, up 30%, with gross profit of US$4.8 million and adjusted EBITDA of US$1.4 million. Subtracting the first and third quarters from the nine-month totals implies a second quarter of roughly US$23.2 million in revenue, US$5.1 million in gross profit and US$1.9 million in adjusted EBITDA. Those Q2 figures are PPC Land's arithmetic on rounded numbers, not company disclosures.

Read in sequence, revenue grew 30% in Q1 and 17% in Q3, while adjusted EBITDA went from US$1.4 million to roughly US$1.9 million to US$2.2 million. Revenue growth slowed. Profit kept rising.

Where the extra profit came from

Audioboom attributes the wider gross margin to "our focus on higher quality revenue and improved creator contracts." Stuart Last, chief executive, put it in more direct terms. "Gross profit growth almost doubled that rate, up 30%, reflecting continued improvements to our podcaster revenue shares and a greater contribution from higher margin advertising products," Last said in the update.

That is a significant admission for a company whose business model rests on sharing advertising revenue with the podcasters it represents. A better revenue share for Audioboom is, by definition, a smaller share for creators on the same dollar of advertising. The update names no specific changes to contract terms and gives no figure for the split.

Below gross profit, costs were held flat. According to Last, the final stages of integrating Adelicious, the UK network Audioboom agreed to acquire in July 2025, produced cost synergies that kept operating costs at approximately US$1.1 million a month. That figure has not moved since the first quarter, when PPC Land reported the same monthly cost base. Three months at US$1.1 million comes to about US$3.3 million; deducted from US$5.6 million of gross profit, it leaves roughly the US$2.2 million of adjusted EBITDA the company reported.

Operational gearing

Audioboom's own phrase for the effect is "high operational gearing." The company says the US$3.5 million year-on-year increase in Q3 revenue delivered a US$1.0 million increase in adjusted EBITDA, which it describes as an incremental margin in excess of 25%. On the rounded figures, US$1.0 million over US$3.5 million is about 29%.

"Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 9% for the quarter highlights the strong operational gearing inherent in the business," Last said.

The arithmetic holds as long as the cost base stays fixed. The update ties that stability to the end of the Adelicious integration, and the company's stated plan to buy more businesses would, if carried out, bring new integration costs into later periods.

Showcase and the ad marketplace

Showcase, which Audioboom calls "our ad-tech driven global advertising marketplace," generated Q3 revenue of US$9.7 million, up 20% from US$8.0 million, according to the company. That makes it about 41% of group revenue in the quarter. The automated, ad-tech side of the business is the one Audioboom repeatedly links to higher-margin products, and it sits alongside the traditional host read sponsorships that podcasters voice themselves.

Showcase's growth rate has cooled sharply in 2026. In the first quarter, Showcase revenue rose 63% year-on-year. For full-year 2025 it reached about US$30.4 million, up 31%. The third quarter's 20% sits well below both. The update does not say why, and the company did not give a nine-month Showcase total.

Volume is growing faster than revenue. Average monthly distribution reached 190 million downloads and video views in the quarter, up 47% from 130 million in the third quarter of 2025, according to Audioboom, which credits "the fast-paced growth of Audioboom's video podcasts and new 2026 podcast partnerships." The first quarter of 2026 averaged 170 million downloads and video views.

A 47% rise in distribution alongside 17% revenue growth means revenue per download and view fell year-on-year. That fits the pattern PPC Land has tracked through the past year. Audioboom's blended revenue per thousand downloads, or RPM, fell to US$45.10 in Q1 2026 from US$60.83 a year earlier, as lower-yield video views and UK inventory grew as a share of the mix. In January, Last said video RPMs were less than half the roughly US$71 the company earned on audio-only downloads. The Q3 update gives no RPM figure.

The update also contains an inconsistency between its own sections. The release's standard "About Audioboom" paragraph still says shows are downloaded 125 million times a month by more than 40 million unique listeners, the same figures used at the time of the Adelicious deal in July 2025. The quarterly figure of 190 million downloads and video views is the newer and broader measure, since it counts video views as well as audio downloads.

Counting itself remains contested. On September 29, IAB Tech Lab finalised version 2.3 of its podcast measurement guidelines, which extend download rules to video delivered through open feeds but leave out video inside closed platforms. Audioboom's update does not say which standard its "video views" follow.

Political advertising and the midterms

The most commercially specific passage in the update concerns politics. "In September, our ad marketplace Showcase delivered exceptional performance, benefitting from the first meaningful wave of political advertising spend ahead of the US midterm elections," Last said.

According to Last, Audioboom's politics and news network generates "approximately a quarter of a billion available ad impressions each month." Audioboom expects election-related spending to keep building through the fourth quarter. The US midterm vote is on November 3, 2026.

That network has grown this year. Crooked Media joined Audioboom's creator network in Q1 2026, and in Triton Digital's August ranker, Audioboom sold 33 of the top 150 US shows, including Pod Save America in second place. The same ranker placed Audioboom second among US sales networks with 14,940,675 average weekly downloads, against iHeart Audience Network's 65,896,118.

The broader market backdrop supports the company's expectation. AdImpact projects US$11.6 billion in 2026 midterm political ad spending, above the US$11.2 billion spent in the 2024 presidential cycle, and an executive at DAX US said political podcast ad spend was up 42% year-on-year. Some of that money may move between channels late in the race. Meta, for instance, will block new US political ads from October 27 through November 3, a restriction that applies to Meta's platforms only.

Audioboom gave no figure for political revenue in September, and no forecast for it in Q4. The quarter-of-a-billion number describes available impressions, not sold ones.

What the new guidance implies

The Board now expects adjusted EBITDA for the year ending December 31, 2026 of "at least US$7.7 million," which it says is ahead of current market expectations. The update does not state what those expectations were, so the size of the upgrade cannot be measured from the document alone.

The floor itself can be tested against the nine-month result. With US$5.5 million of adjusted EBITDA booked to September 30, the US$7.7 million minimum requires at least US$2.2 million in the fourth quarter. That is the same figure as Q3 2026, and the same as the roughly US$2.2 million Audioboom earned in Q4 2025.

In other words, the guidance floor assumes no year-on-year growth in fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA, in a quarter Audioboom itself says will carry election-related spending that "continues to build." Either the company has built a wide margin of safety into the number, or it expects costs or margins in Q4 to absorb some of the political revenue. The update does not say which. For full-year 2025, adjusted EBITDA was about US$5.1 million, so the 2026 floor represents growth of at least about 51%.

Cash, debt and an acquisition plan

Group cash stood at US$6.7 million on September 30, 2026, according to Audioboom, against US$2.9 million a year earlier and US$5.4 million on June 30, 2026. At March 31, PPC Land reported group cash of US$5.5 million, so the balance dipped slightly in the second quarter before rising by US$1.3 million in the third.

Two credit lines sit on top of the cash. An overdraft facility provides a further US$3.4 million, the same amount available at the end of 2025. A new revolving credit facility adds US$10.0 million, which the company says will "support the Company's M&A-focused accelerated growth strategy." Combined, that is about US$20.1 million of cash and undrawn facilities. The update gives no interest rate, lender name, term or covenant details for the new facility.

Last was explicit about how the money will be used. "Together with our cash balance of US$6.7 million, we have the financial firepower and flexibility to lead the inevitable consolidation within the podcast industry," he said. "Our objective remains to execute three to four meaningful transactions over the medium term."

The company did not define "medium term" or "meaningful." The language follows a period of strategic uncertainty: Audioboom had a strategic review under way at the start of 2026, launched in October 2025. The Q3 update refers to the half-year report as the place where the acquisition-led strategy was set out, and makes no further mention of the review.

The cash generation story connects to an earlier change. Audioboom's final onerous contract, provided for in 2023, ended on December 31, 2025, after which the Board said adjusted EBITDA would act as a proxy for cash generation. Nine months of adjusted EBITDA at US$5.5 million against a year-to-date cash increase of US$2.5 million, from US$4.2 million at the end of 2025 to US$6.7 million, suggests that conversion is not one-for-one. The update does not break down where the difference went, whether into working capital, tax, capital spending or creator advances.

Creators, renewals and the 2027 sales season

On the commercial side, Audioboom said new signings in the quarter added "tier one content partnerships including the Pionaire Network and Brand Safe" to the Audioboom Creator Network. It also renewed contracts with The Broski Report and Let's Not Meet. The update gives no audience figures for the new partners and no financial terms for any of the deals.

Audioboom has also started selling into next year. In September the company held an advertising event in New York City to open what it called the 2027 "upfronts" season, attended by more than 100 representatives from advertising agencies and brands, according to Last. The upfront model, in which inventory is committed months ahead, has historically belonged to television; podcast networks have adopted the vocabulary as they compete for the same agency budgets.

"The positive advertiser response to our record levels of inventory and premium roster of audio and video content provides strong momentum as we look ahead into 2027," Last said. No booked revenue figure for 2027 was given. In October 2025, by contrast, Audioboom said it had already secured more than US$79 million in full-year advertising revenue for that year.

Why this matters for advertisers and publishers

Audioboom is small next to the largest audio groups. Its quarterly revenue is a fraction of the US$372 million SiriusXM reported for Pandora and off-platform advertising in a single quarter. It is, however, one of the few listed companies that reports podcast advertising as almost its entire business, which makes its figures a useful reading of conditions in the independent podcast market.

Three points stand out from this update. First, profit is now growing faster than revenue mainly because Audioboom keeps a larger share of each advertising dollar, not because advertisers are paying more per listener; distribution grew 47% while revenue grew 17%. Second, video volume continues to rise faster than video monetisation, a gap that PPC Land found across the wider market, where about 77% of 34,208 video podcasts studied carried no advertising. Third, the guidance floor is conservative relative to the company's own description of Q4 demand.

For media buyers, the expansion of available inventory, combined with lower revenue per download, points toward continued pressure on podcast pricing outside the most sought-after shows. For podcasters, Last's comment about "improvements to our podcaster revenue shares" is a direct signal about how network economics are being rebalanced. And for the wider sector, the stated intent to "lead the inevitable consolidation" puts smaller networks on notice that a buyer with about US$20 million in available capital is looking.

The broader podcast ad market is still forecast to grow. VAB, using eMarketer data, projects US podcast ad spend of US$3.40 billion in 2026, rising to US$4.69 billion by 2030. Whether Audioboom's growth tracks that market, or depends on acquisitions to keep pace, is the question its next set of results will start to answer.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Audioboom, the AIM-listed podcast company led by chief executive Stuart Last, along with the advertisers, agencies and podcasters that use its Showcase marketplace and Creator Network.

What: Audioboom reported Q3 2026 revenue of US$23.8 million, up 17%, gross profit of US$5.6 million, up 30%, and adjusted EBITDA of US$2.2 million, up 89%, and raised its 2026 adjusted EBITDA expectation to at least US$7.7 million. It also disclosed a new US$10.0 million revolving credit facility for acquisitions and US$6.7 million of cash.

When: The trading update was published on October 14, 2026, covering the quarter ended September 30, 2026.

Where: Audioboom is headquartered in London and listed on AIM, with most of its advertising revenue tied to US podcast audiences, including the politics and news network it says carries about 250 million available ad impressions a month.

Why: Profit grew faster than revenue because Audioboom improved its revenue shares with podcasters, sold more higher-margin ad products and held operating costs at about US$1.1 million a month. The company expects US midterm political spending to build through Q4, though its guidance floor implies Q4 adjusted EBITDA no higher than a year earlier.