SiriusXM today named Anjali Sud, chief executive of the free streaming service Tubi and an independent director on its own board since March 2025, as its next chief executive. She takes over on January 1, 2027 from Jennifer Witz, who has decided to step down after nearly six years in the job and almost two and a half decades at the company. Witz will remain in an advisory role until the end of 2027, according to the announcement, which SiriusXM issued from New York.

The handover arrives 11 days after SiriusXM reported a third quarter in which advertising revenue held at $456 million against $455 million a year earlier and Pandora lost 2.75 million monthly users. It also arrives before the company's exclusive deal to sell YouTube's audio advertising in the United States has started to produce meaningful revenue. Sud comes from a video service that charges viewers nothing and lives on advertising, and she will run a company whose revenue still comes mostly from subscriptions.

In Short

SiriusXM, which owns the SiriusXM satellite radio service, Pandora, a large podcast business and the AdsWizz ad technology company, said today that Tubi's chief executive Anjali Sud will replace Jennifer Witz as its chief executive on January 1, 2027, with Witz staying on as an adviser for 2027. The change matters to advertisers and podcasters because SiriusXM sells audio advertising across satellite radio, Pandora, podcasts and YouTube's US audio inventory, and that business stopped growing in the third quarter. The announcement itself changes nothing in what SiriusXM sells or how, since it sets out no new strategy, management changes or financial targets.

The terms of the handover

The announcement is brief on mechanics. Sud's appointment is effective January 1, 2027. Witz steps down as chief executive at that point but stays in an advisory role "until the end of 2027," so for her successor's first year the former chief executive remains attached to the company. Sud keeps her board seat: she "will remain a member of the Board of Directors following her appointment," according to the release, though no longer as an outside director.

Several things a shareholder or business partner might look for are absent. The release gives no compensation figures for Sud and no terms for Witz's departure or her advisory role. It does not describe how the board ran the search, whether outside candidates were considered, or when the decision was taken. It names no other management changes and does not touch the full-year guidance SiriusXM raised on October 29.

The reasons are stated in one line, and they are Witz's own. The release calls the move "Jennifer Witz's decision to step down," and she said: "I firmly believe that SiriusXM is on a strong path and that now is the time for a transition."

Her length of service is described three ways in the same document. The subheadline says "Over Two Decades," the opening paragraph says "almost two and a half decades at the Company," and the chairman, Greg Maffei, speaks of "her 25-year career, including nearly six years as CEO." The figures point to a tenure just short of 25 years.

From Vimeo to Tubi

Sud's recent career has been in video, not audio. Before Vimeo she held positions "in e-commerce, finance, and media at Amazon and Time Warner," according to the release. At Vimeo she rose from head of global marketing to chief executive in July 2017, and took the company public through a spin-off from IAC in May 2021. The release says she led Vimeo's "transformation into a profitable, global video platform with 300 million users." Vimeo's later history ran without her: after she left, Bending Spoons agreed in September 2025 to buy it for $1.38 billion in cash, and in January 2026 cut most of its staff.

She moved to Tubi in 2023. Tubi is owned by FOX and charges viewers nothing; its revenue comes from advertising, which places it in the AVOD category of streaming. Tubi passed 100 million monthly active users in June 2025 and, on Nielsen's measurement, took 2.2% of US TV viewing minutes in May of that year. Today's release puts the audience at "more than 110 million monthly active users" and says Tubi "expanded globally" under her leadership. FOX does not publish Tubi's revenue in dollars; in its fiscal first quarter to September 2026 it reported Tubi revenue up 35%.

Sud also sits on the boards of Dolby Laboratories and Change.org. She holds an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Who runs Tubi now?

The release says Sud "currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Tubi." Three days ago, when FOX completed its acquisition of Roku and grouped Tubi, Roku, FOX One and Red Seat Ventures into a new FOX Digital Platforms division under co-chair and chief executive Paul Cheesbrough, TheDesk reported that Mike Bidgoli becomes president of Tubi, succeeding Sud. That appointment was not part of FOX's own announcement. SiriusXM's release does not say when Sud's role at Tubi ends.

SiriusXM and Tubi already do business together. On June 2, 2026, while Sud ran Tubi and sat on SiriusXM's board, the two companies agreed a non-exclusive deal to put six SiriusXM video podcasts on Tubi, among them "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend" and "What Now? with Trevor Noah," with advertising revenue split between Tubi and SiriusXM Media on terms that were not disclosed. Today's release does not mention the arrangement.

What the chairman credited to Witz

Maffei listed Witz's record in a single paragraph: "expanding in-car penetration and 360L rollouts, solidifying its premium, content-led subscription business with record-high customer satisfaction and record-low churn, securing an exclusive advertising partnership with YouTube, and building one of the nation's leading podcast networks." He added: "SiriusXM is now generating its best core financial metrics in years, returning to revenue growth and generating near-record levels of free cash flow."

Set against the figures SiriusXM has published this year, some of those claims are firmer than others.

Revenue growth by a thin margin

The revenue claim rests on small numbers. Full-year 2025 revenue fell 2% to $8.56 billion. Revenue then rose 1% in the first quarter of 2026, to $2.09 billion, and 1% in the second, to $2.16 billion. In the third quarter it was $2,153 million against $2,159 million, a slight decline. The company's own full-year target of about $8.55 billion, raised twice by $25 million since February, would leave 2026 revenue roughly level with 2025.

Cash flow and churn

Free cash flow is the stronger part of the claim. It reached $1.26 billion in 2025, up 24% from $1.02 billion in 2024, and $1,057 million in the first nine months of 2026, up 48%. SiriusXM expects about $1.40 billion for 2026 and has repeated a target of about $1.5 billion for 2027. The release does not identify the record year against which "near-record" is measured.

The churn claim matches the company's earlier disclosures. Self-pay monthly churn hit what SiriusXM called a record low of 1.4% in the fourth quarter of 2025 and returned to about 1.4% in the second quarter of 2026, before ending the third quarter at about 1.5%, down from 1.6% a year earlier. No customer satisfaction measure appears in the release.

On the in-car side, the company said in February that 360L, its hybrid satellite and internet platform, reached more than 50% of new SiriusXM-enabled vehicles. That connection is what turns a one-way satellite broadcast into addressable advertising inventory.

YouTube and podcasts

The YouTube agreement, signed on April 22, 2026, made SiriusXM Media the exclusive US representative for YouTube's audio-first advertising inventory: moments on YouTube and YouTube Music when people listen rather than watch, such as backgrounded mobile apps, smart speakers and minimized video podcasts in a desktop browser. It does not cover YouTube's wider video marketplace. In October, SiriusXM Media said adding YouTube audio to beta campaigns lifted advertisers' unique reach by up to 91%, without publishing a method or campaign count. Chief financial officer Zac Coughlin said in July that the company did not expect a meaningful financial contribution from the deal for the rest of 2026 or the first half of 2027, and that it would become much more significant in the second half of 2027. That is the second half of Sud's first year in charge.

The podcast business is real, and its growth is slowing. SiriusXM's podcast advertising grew nearly 50% in the third quarter of 2025, 41% across 2025, 37% in the first quarter of 2026, 30% in the second and 20% in the third.

The advertising business Sud inherits

Advertising is the smaller part of SiriusXM. In the third quarter, $456 million of advertising revenue made up about 21% of the $2,153 million total, while subscriber revenue of $1,630 million accounted for about 76%, on PPC Land's calculation. Most of the advertising runs through the Pandora and Off-platform segment, which brought in $419 million, up 1%. Advertising sold on the SiriusXM service itself fell 5% to $37 million.

Inside that segment, the parts that grew were podcasting, up 20%, programmatic advertising, up 21%, and technology fees, up 11%. Pandora's own audience moved the other way. Its monthly active users fell 7% to 38.812 million and ad-supported listener hours fell 10%. On a PPC Land estimate built from SiriusXM's own definitions, sales from AdsWizz and other off-platform sources now account for just over half of the segment's advertising. Today's release states the underlying risk in its own forward-looking language: "our SiriusXM service has suffered a loss of subscribers, and our Pandora ad-supported service has similarly experienced a loss of monthly active users."

Several pieces of the advertising machine were put in place under Witz in the past 16 months. In July 2025 SiriusXM introduced SiriusXM Play, an ad-supported plan priced under $7 a month with about half the ad load of AM/FM radio at launch. In July 2026 it took exclusive ad sales rights to both the audio and video versions of "The Bald and the Beautiful". Five days ago AdsWizz began placing audio ads with companion banners in video episodes on Apple Podcasts. Video already runs through parts of SiriusXM's advertising inventory, and the incoming chief executive has spent more than a decade in video.

The management structure below the chief executive was also reshaped recently. On September 8, SiriusXM promoted Sean Gibbons to chief product and technology officer, reporting directly to Witz and overseeing product, engineering, automotive and streaming distribution partnerships and advertising technology across SiriusXM and Pandora. The release does not say whether that reporting line or any other changes under Sud.

What the three statements say

Sud's own remarks are short and general. "Premium audio experiences will be more important than ever to the future of entertainment, and I believe SiriusXM can evolve to lead that future," she said. She added that she looks forward "to working with the team to execute with ambition and expand value for our subscribers, advertisers, artists, creators, talent, partners, and shareholders." Advertisers come second in that list, after subscribers. She does not mention Pandora, podcasts, video or YouTube by name, and she gives no indication of what "evolve" might involve.

Maffei's case for her rests on range rather than audio experience. "In her previous roles, she scaled audiences, expanded platforms, and led businesses supported by both advertising and subscription models," he said, adding that as a director "she has intimate knowledge of our business and strategy." He said the board was "confident Anjali will hit the ground running and build on our momentum as we continue to execute against our objectives."

Witz named the advertising business among three achievements she was "particularly proud of": "strengthening the subscriber experience, expanding our advertising business, and unlocking greater value across our broader portfolio." She closed on a personal note: "While I will be leaving my role as CEO, I'll remain a lifelong subscriber and supporter of SiriusXM."

Why this matters for the marketing community

SiriusXM describes itself in the release as reaching "approximately 255 million monthly listeners across its platforms." For buyers of US audio, it sells satellite radio, streaming music, podcasts and other publishers' audio, including SoundCloud and YouTube, through one sales operation. A change at the top of that operation matters even when the announcement itself changes no product.

The timing puts a particular set of decisions in front of the new chief executive. The YouTube agreement is expected to start paying in the second half of 2027. Podcast advertising growth slowed from nearly 50% to 20% in four quarters. Pandora's own audience is shrinking, so growth in the segment increasingly depends on selling other companies' audio. Each of those is an advertising question, and SiriusXM has chosen an executive whose last job was running a service with no subscription revenue at all.

Sud will not arrive as an outsider. As a director since March 2025, she was on the board throughout the period in which SiriusXM signed the YouTube deal, put product and ad technology under Gibbons and set its 2026 guidance. What she does differently once she runs the company is not addressed in today's release.

SiriusXM has been a standalone listed company since September 2024, when its transactions with Liberty Media closed and the new company began trading on Nasdaq. Today's appointment is the first change of chief executive since then.

Timeline

Summary

Who: SiriusXM (Sirius XM Holdings Inc.), its chairman Greg Maffei, departing chief executive Jennifer Witz and incoming chief executive Anjali Sud, currently described by SiriusXM as chief executive of FOX's Tubi.

What: SiriusXM appointed Sud as chief executive, effective January 1, 2027, after Witz decided to step down. Witz stays as an adviser until the end of 2027 and Sud keeps her board seat. The release discloses no pay, separation terms, strategy changes or other management changes.

When: The announcement was made today, November 9, 2026. Sud takes over on January 1, 2027, and Witz's advisory role runs to the end of 2027.

Where: New York, where SiriusXM issued the announcement. The company's audio and advertising business operates mainly in North America.

Why: According to the release, Witz decided that "now is the time for a transition," and the board chose Sud for her record in ad-supported and subscription businesses and her knowledge of SiriusXM as a director. For marketers, the change comes as SiriusXM's advertising revenue has stopped growing, podcast ad growth has slowed to 20%, Pandora's audience is shrinking and the YouTube audio deal is not expected to contribute meaningfully until the second half of 2027.