Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, Sirius XM, the online radio service, says it's focused on growth off for its twenty twenty five forecasts missed Expectations. That was back in December. Now bloem megs Ed Ludlow just caught up with the CEO Jennifer Witz at CES and began with a discussion on AI implementation.
In some ways, I think we're the ANTIAI in terms of in terms of content creation and curation, right, So, you know, we pride ourselves on the hosts and the programmers that we have, the people that actually put together the channels and the shows. It's the voices you hear every day on your commute that really drive that intimacy that audio offers. In the connection where we will leverage AI is in some respects where others have used it
as well to provide better discovery and personalization. Right, So we hope that our programmers can really curate an experience to help you find what you love, but also the technology of AI can create more personalization in our marketing, in the product itself in terms of recommendations to enhance that even more. And of course there's lots of other benefits for AI in terms of cost reduction and more efficiencies in the business.
Overall, this is Bloomberg. So let's talk some business. Last month, you basically said this is our revenue outlook for twenty twenty five, and investors, for whatever reason, we're disappointed. You also said that you're going to cut costs run your business. How is the cost costing going and what were the facts that I guess if you accept that the revenue output was not what your investors want to see, what were the factors behind it being what it was.
Yeah, So we're very focused on supporting the top line and the two aspects of our business that we've talked about subscription and advertising, and we have opportunities to continue to grow there and drive improvements to that part of our business. But we're really focused on the subscription side on what we do best audio first and in the car, because that's where we've proven that we can really be
successful and that's where radio is very successful. In our ads business, we talked about where we're adding in terms of podcasts and other content to build out that portfolio, and yes, cost reduction will be increasingly important as we
move forward. As we want to sustain our industry leading margins, and on top of that, we also have significant free cash flow generation right and as we get to our target leverage ratio, we'll be able to increasingly return capital and shareholders, whether it's through our dividend or through show repurchases as well.
I think I'm right in saying this is your first CES in about five years. That's right, it's packed. There is an intense focus on the exhibitors AI. I would also say there are lots of questions about what twenty twenty five is going to be like, in particular because we have a new administration that will come into our office this month. How is serious extent preparing for that? Do you see if being a factor to people that listen to audio in America? This year?
We have a really diverse set of content, and I think one of the things we saw during the election is an increase in news and politics content consumption, which is probably not surprising, but it just speaks to the overall bundle and that we have something for everyone at any given time depending on what's going on, and also the value of live linear when something important is going on. So I think you know that's going to continue to
be a focus for us. And then you know there are things like you know, people are focused on tariffs and taxes and what happens with the auto business. But you know, we feel really good about our position in terms of our availability across the spectrum of auto manufacturers, being a lot of meetings with the OEMs while we're here, in addition to advertisers, and I think we feel good. December was a great month for auto sales, so hopefully that's an indication of what's going to come in twenty
twenty five. Strong auto market is great for our business.
Serious XM CEO Jennifer Witz.
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