Sirius XM Holdings Inc (SIRI) 2020 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the SiriusXM's Fourth Quarter 2020 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. (Operator Instructions)

At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Hooper Stevens, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance. Mr. Stevens, please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to SiriusXM's Fourth Quarter and 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Today, we will have prepared remarks from Jennifer Witz, our Chief Executive Officer; and Sean Sullivan, our Chief Financial Officer. Scott Greenstein, our President and Chief Content Officer, will join Jennifer and Sean to take your questions.

I would like to remind everyone that certain statements made during the call might be forward-looking statements as the term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These and all forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs and expectations and necessarily depend upon assumptions, data or methods that may be incorrect or imprecise. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For more information about those risks and uncertainties, please view SiriusXM's SEC filings.

We advise listeners to not rely unduly upon forward-looking statements and disclaim any intent or obligation to update them. As we begin, I'd like to remind our listeners that today's results will include discussions about both actual results and pro forma adjusted results. All discussions of pro forma adjusted operating results assume the Pandora transaction closed January 1, 2019, and exclude the effects of stock-based compensation and certain purchase price accounting adjustments.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jennifer.

Good morning, and thank you for joining today. I'm very pleased to welcome Sean Sullivan, our new Chief Financial Officer, to his very first earnings call at SiriusXM. We turned in a truly phenomenal 2020 that highlighted the resiliency of our business and the teams that make it work. We were able to grow SiriusXM self-pay subscribers by 909,000, which actually exceeded our original pre-COVID guidance. We added a 400 -- we added 400,000 -- 407,000 net new self-pay subscribers in the fourth quarter alone. Our self-pay base stands at an all-time high of 30.9 million and churn improved for the fourth consecutive year.

Revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow all climbed in 2020. After working our way through the worst of the pandemic impact on auto sales and advertising in the second quarter, the trajectory of our results improved throughout the year. By the fourth quarter, we obtained record-high quarterly revenue of $2.2 billion, including record advertising revenue of $474 million.

Adjusted EBITDA climbed 12% in the fourth quarter to $660 million and free cash flow climbed to $448 million. Along with these outstanding results, we made significant progress in 2020 towards our long-term goals of improving our SiriusXM service with greater 360L distribution, bolstering our leading content position and growing our reach in digital advertising.

We also closed on our acquisition of Stitcher, greatly expanding our footprint in podcasting and magnifying the reach of our platforms to some 150 million consumers. We have assembled massive audio entertainment audiences that can be monetized by our world-class digital ad sales team and technology suite.

Sean will provide more details about our guidance. But in 2021, we expect to see strong subscriber growth, growing subscription and advertising revenue and significant cash generation. The outperformance in 2020 driven primarily by a significant reduction in SAC, combined with exciting investments we are making across our business, in expanded OEM distribution, programming and content and digital product development, will certainly make year-over-year adjusted EBITDA comparisons more difficult.

Nevertheless, I'm very pleased with our outlook, and we are committed to offering the best content lineup in audio entertainment, investing in our customer experiences and, of course, continuing to build our leading digital ad business.

We reached our goal of 80% new car penetration in the fourth quarter, and this figure is set to rise modestly in 2021. Put simply, automakers are more committed than ever to include SiriusXM in new cars. The enabled fleet has reached nearly 135 million cars and should climb to more than 220 million over time.

SiriusXM's technology was in almost 50% of all used cars sold in the U.S. in 2020, up about 4 points over 2019. This will continue heading north as the fleet turns over, continuing to grow our opportunity in used cars.

As we have said before, the adoption of 360L is quickly growing. Roughly 25% of SiriusXM-equipped new vehicles sold this year will be on our 360L platform in 2021, and this should rise to about 80% in 2025. Customers love the new feature set, ease of use and interface of our 360L product. While still very early, we see encouraging conversion trends in 360L vehicles and are continuously improving the personalized marketing efforts enabled by and tailored to 360L and its unique features.

In-vehicle connectivity will also enable future revenue opportunities such as a persistently free version of SiriusXM, with targeted digital ads and an improved presentation of Pandora in vehicle. We plan to test various approaches to an ad-supported version of SiriusXM starting this year in order to determine the best way to run a scaled offering like this in the future, although the 360L-enabled fleet will take time to build-out.

This is yet another exciting way we are making significant long-term investments to drive more share of ear, wallet and ad budgets across our platforms.

In addition to the in-vehicle benefits of connectivity, we are successfully growing digital engagement of SiriusXM out-of-car on smartphones and connected devices.

In December, households who have streamed SiriusXM climbed more than 40% year-over-year to a new all-time high, with especially sharp increases in listening on Google and Roku devices. When customers use SiriusXM outside of the car, we see tangible benefits in better conversion, better churn and, we believe, an opportunity to drive pricing in the future.

We're also growing digital-only subscribers. And in the fourth quarter, we saw our biggest-ever contribution to self-pay net adds from this channel. The base is still small, but our investments in extra music channels, digital sports rights, the launch of podcast and focused packaging and marketing are beginning to pay off with growth in digital-only subs.

SiriusXM's value proposition rests on having a bundle of expertly curated music, plus a variety of news, talk, comedy, sports and, as I mentioned, now select podcasts as well. We now have the opportunity to invest more in content than ever before because we have more ways for our subscribers to enjoy it, and we have more ways for this content to be monetized across our platforms that reach 150 million users and indeed, even in the broader podcasting distribution universe.

We're thrilled that Howard Stern extended his agreement to continue live shows at SiriusXM for another 5 years and licenses archived to us for another 7 years beyond that. Howard is at the top of his game with remarkable interviews, comedy and commentary. Stay tuned. But in the meantime, we are excited for a big expansion of Kevin Hart's content in podcasting, which he announced on Howard's show Wednesday morning.

Our new and expanded deal with Kevin's Laugh Out Loud comedy brand highlights our growing ability to package and distribute our unmatched content in new ways given the scale and reach of our advertising and subscription business.

Our strength in podcasting accelerated in the fourth quarter with our acquisition of Stitcher, the launch of podcast within the SiriusXM streaming service and further expansion of the podcast library on Pandora. Stitcher is a premier full-service contacting platform that dovetails nicely with Simplecast, a hosting and analytics company we purchased earlier last year. Through its network of shows, Stitcher has the largest share of the U.S. podcast listening audience available to advertisers, and the fourth quarter was its biggest ever in terms of ad dollars.

This year, we plan to leverage the capabilities of Stitcher and Simplecast with our ongoing leadership in audio advertising to roll out a new podcast advertising solution that integrates enhanced targeting, transparent delivery and measurement, bespoke creative and exclusive programming access. This growing position in podcasting nicely complements our leadership in free digital music streaming, as advertisers increasingly look to strategically buy across multiple formats.

Through Stitcher, we now have some of the most popular podcasts available today, either owned and operated or through sales and distribution, including Freakonomics, Hidden Brain and My Favorite Murder. And don't forget Office Ladies, which was recently named Podcast of the Year. And many popular SiriusXM hosts and stars have enthusiastically debuted new podcasts with us, including Jeff Lewis, Mad Dog Russo, the original MTV VJs, Storme Warren and health experts from NYU Langone Health and SiriusXM's Doctor Radio channel. You will see us use a multi-platform windowed approach to content in more ways. It gives us new potential to further invest in content always in a smart, disciplined way and to attract new talent that, frankly, might not have considered a deal with SiriusXM alone. Kevin Hart's new agreement is a good example of the potential here. Clearly, the same can be said for our arrangement with Marvel Entertainment.

While we love the additional engagement podcasting can drive on our platform, we continue to be business model-oriented. By driving monetization and advertising, we can grow our podcasting business and help deliver more value to content creators.

Music is also vital to our offering, and we recently announced the launch of a Foo Fighters channel, which includes an exclusive performance from our garage space at our L.A. studio hub airing this Friday. We also just launched 4 new limited-run channels to celebrate Black History Month. The channels salute powerful pioneering artists, including Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and a channel recognizing artists from the legendary label, Motown Record.

Our relationships with key media brands and our growing advertising business benefits us in multiple ways. In December, we renewed and extended our rights for the TODAY Show, full-time channel on SiriusXM with NBCUniversal News Group as well as the simulcast with MSNBC and CNBC.

But under the new agreement, SiriusXM also became the exclusive advertising representative, an end-to-end ad tech platform for a broad slate of podcasts from NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. We know live sports and sports talk are beloved by our subscribers. We just became the exclusive audio broadcaster of the Masters, and we're looking forward to producing and airing one of the biggest events in sports this April.

We also continue to expand our streaming rights with major pro sports league, recently with the NFL and NBA to deliver play-by-play to more of our digital subscribers and to make it easier to hear their favorite teams on our app.

We continue to see success from our mode feature on Pandora, which puts control in the listener's hands to further personalize their experience. The popularity of Modes among Pandora users have continued to accelerate, with listeners using the feature nearly doubling in the second half of 2020.

Pandora also launched Wake Up!, a series of hosted playlists featuring black artists and the thought leaders sharing the music that reflects their day-to-day experiences and the songs that move them to action. And our Pandora, a popular Pandora live virtual concert series, has recently featured Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and Brandy with Summer Walker.

As I close my comments, I want to remind all of our stakeholders that we are continuously reinforcing our efforts at diversity, equity and inclusion. We are taking even more focused actions to broaden our talent pipeline through collaboration with diverse professional organizations for both recruitment and development opportunities. I firmly believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce is both the right thing to do and simply good for business.

As we look ahead, our priorities remain: building on our leadership position in North American audio with premium content and unmatched distribution; driving penetration of SiriusXM and 360L to improve our in-vehicle service; accelerating digital subscriptions and engagement; and bolstering our leading position in digital audio advertising.

By executing on these priorities, we intend to continue our long-term history of delivering significant EBITDA and free cash flow for our stockholders.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Sean.

Thanks, Jennifer. It's great to be here to reconnect with many of you on the call today and to meet more of you soon. I joined SiriusXM this past fall because of the company's tremendous brands, reach, business model, its growth potential and, most importantly, for the chance to partner with the talented people here at SiriusXM.

Looking back on 2020, our dual subscription and advertising revenue streams performed better than expected during a tumultuous year. Subscription revenue at SiriusXM delivered steady, modest growth given our very loyal subscriber base. Advertising revenue finished strong, climbing 17% in the fourth quarter after a difficult market earlier in the year.

For the full year, pro forma revenue increased 2% to $8.05 billion and adjusted EBITDA increased 6% to $2.58 billion. Free cash flow was relatively unchanged at $1.66 billion.

As previously announced, for 2021, we expect revenue of approximately $8.35 billion. Both ad revenue and subscription revenue will contribute to the growth, albeit with a modest impact to subscription revenue due to a lower paid trial sub base as we cycle in new, more efficient deals with certain OEMs.

Unique year-over-year comparisons guide us to flat adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2.575 billion for 2021 as certain COVID-related expense benefits reversed this year as we make substantial reinvestments across our business that will benefit us for years to come. Particularly of note, the significant reduction in expense we saw from lower trial starts in 2020 will now turn the other way in 2021 as trial starts are expected to ramp materially this year, driving both SAC and marketing.

As Jennifer highlighted, we also anticipate new content investments and increased product development to support our customer experiences, all of this being a smart investment in future growth.

We also have taken a pragmatic view of streaming royalty costs ahead of the Web V decision by the Copyright Royalty Board, which is expected no later than April 15. If necessary, we will calibrate our full year adjusted EBITDA expectations following that decision. With modest growth in cash taxes and interest expense, we expect free cash flow of approximately $1.6 billion in 2021.

A couple of quick comments on SiriusXM subscriber growth. The 909,000 net self-pay subs in 2020 were all the more remarkable given the significant drop in new car sales. We ended the fourth quarter with a trial funnel of 8.4 million, down 5% from the third quarter as we begin to see the reduced trial lengths at 2 automakers. The active trial funnel should continue to fall for a few quarters as these new agreements pace in, but more importantly, with current third-party car estimates, our trial starts should climb in 2021 at their fastest rate since 2015.

Rising auto sales, new and used car penetration and digital subscriptions provide subscriber tailwinds, whereas a bigger subscriber base in 2021 and modest headwinds in vehicle-related and nonpaid churn drive growth in deactivations. Accordingly, we feel very good about our guidance for approximately 800,000 SiriusXM self-pay net additions in 2021.

Now moving on to Pandora. We recorded a $976 million noncash impairment charge as a result of overall expected operating performance at the Pandora reporting unit. Engagement has been challenged by a competitive environment and, as discussed, we have taken a pragmatic view of royalty costs in our assumptions.

Let me remind you that the advertising monetization of Pandora remains incredibly strong. We benefit from added scale in digital product development and Pandora's sizable ad business is an important contributor in our strategy to grow off-platform advertising and to innovate in podcasting.

A couple of other matters to highlight: one relating to our SXM-7 satellite; and the other related to a tax sharing agreement. In December, our SXM-7 satellite was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on a Spacex Falcon 9 rocket. Unfortunately, we noted in an 8-K last week that the satellite suffered damage during in-orbit testing that resulted in the failure of certain payload units. The evaluation of SXM-7 is underway, and the full extent of the damage to the satellite is not yet known.

We do not expect our service to be impacted by these adverse events. Our XM-3 and XM-4 satellites continue to operate and are expected to support our service for several years. In addition, our XM-5 satellite remains available as an in-orbit spare. Construction of our SXM-8 satellite is well underway, and we expect it will be launched later this year.

We have purchased insurance policies with aggregate coverage of $225 million for SXM-7 through launch in the first year of in-orbit operation. We have notified the underwriters of a potential claim with respect to SXM-7.

With respect to the tax sharing agreement, SiriusXM recently entered an agreement with Liberty Media that was negotiated and approved by a special committee of our independent directors. This agreement comes into play when Liberty owns 80% of SiriusXM, at which point, the 2 companies would become members of the same consolidated tax group. The tax sharing agreement contains customary provisions, and a copy will be filed as an exhibit to our 10-K. The agreement and our inclusion in Liberty's consolidated tax group will not have any adverse effect on us.

We, again, delivered significant capital returns to stockholders in 2020 totaling $1.8 billion, with share repurchases of $1.6 billion and dividend payments of $237 million. We opportunistically accelerated share repurchases to $680 million in the fourth quarter and closed on our $265 million purchase of Stitcher, ending the year with a 3.3x debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio and $1.1 billion of available capacity under our revolving credit facility.

In closing, it's been an incredibly busy, challenging and fun few months getting to know this business. It's truly one of a kind. And I know we're all looking forward to the day when more of this collaboration inside the company, and we'll all -- and with all of you who can actually be done in person.

So with that, operator, let's dive into Q&A.

The first question is going to be from Kutgun Maral with RBC Capital Markets.

One on free cash flow and one on buybacks, if I could. I was hoping to get more color on the gross free cash flow outlook. The guidance suggests that 2021 will be flat, maybe down a bit off of flattish expectations for EBITDA. This suggests your free cash flow conversion might tick down a bit. I assume that reflects a healthy amount of conservatism. But separate to that, is there anything structural going on that should inform more longer-term free cash flow view (inaudible) business on digital (inaudible)? Or are there non-working capital items that you expect to your cash flow in 2021 as you comp against some puts and takes from COVID, perhaps with a headwind from the ramp in trial starts that you just called out.

And relatedly, how do you think about capital allocation in 2021? You were quite active in managing your portfolio last year with Stitcher, Simplecast and SoundCloud. What does the M&A pipeline look like? And how do you think about the buyback pace going forward?

Okay. I'll start off, and then, Sean, maybe you can add in where appropriate. But just on the year-over-year comps from free cash flow, much of it has to do with what we're expecting on EBITDA. The results we turned in for 2020 are incredible, and I'm really proud of the team for delivering these results, especially in the face of so much adversity. It's the team, combined with a really strong business model, that you've come to expect from us that led us to the outperformance we saw in 2020.

I mean on the top line, I feel pretty good. Sean talked about some of the tailwinds on the revenue side. We're looking to grow self-pay net adds, as we've said in our guidance, by 800,000. And we're expecting to grow both subscription and advertising revenue. So it really comes down to the year-over-year comparisons on costs, and those kind of fall in 3 primary areas. The first is SAC. Sean referred to this in his comments. But there's a pretty material shift year-over-year in our SAC expense. So last year, with auto sales down significantly particularly in the second quarter, we saw a drawdown in that SAC expense as it relates to sales and inventory build.

And in addition, the marketing expense that comes around the conversions to trial. The opposite thing is happening as we go into '21, where auto sales have been relatively strong, certainly in December, at 16 million started things off well. And we expect at least the third parties are saying auto sales should be around 15.7 million this year, which is up about 9% from the 14.4 million last year. This comes with a commensurate inventory build typically. And our SAC expense and marketing expense is around the rebuild of that trial funnel will increase. So it's just the opposite of what happened last year. And again, this is all good for business. It's just timing, and it's a natural part of our business model where we see the expenses come before we see the self-pay revenue.

So in addition to SAC, as we said, we're being pragmatic about Web V. We'll have more to say about that on our next call. But we do expect this to be a headwind, particularly with Pandora, where there's more streaming usage relative to SiriusXM.

And then the last piece is our investments in content and product development, which support value for our subscription packages and more features that will help our user experiences, both in and out of the car. An interesting component on the content side is that we did have some content launches delay from '20 to '21. And so the programming expenses related to that and the marketing associated with it is also delayed into '21. We also have a full season of Major League Baseball and the NCAA tournament coming back this year. And clearly, we're hoping to host more live events later this year, too.

I think as Sean mentioned, we have purely cash flow side, we also have modestly higher interest expense and some cash taxes, too, going towards the end of this year. But other than that, really no change. I think Sean can speak a little bit to CapEx, and I'll let you pick up on the capital returns as well.

Yes. Thanks, Jennifer. Yes. So just to add, in terms of conversion from EBITDA to free cash flow beyond cash interest, cash taxes, which are modest headwinds, change in working capital is relatively consistent in our estimation from '20 to '21. So nothing going on there. As it relates to capital allocation, I don't think the philosophy of the company has changed. As you saw, we accelerated the buyback in Q4. You'll see in the 10-K today that, that pace continued through the month of January. So we have tremendous confidence in the long-term business opportunity and returning capital to shareholders.

So the capital allocation philosophy really hasn't changed. I think we're investing properly in the company. CapEx will, I think, remain consistent as we continue to build out the digital products and other aspects of the business to drive growth.

You asked about M&A. Clearly, the company has and will continue to evaluate ways to accelerate the strategic opportunity like we did in 2020 with Simplecast, Stitcher and our investment in SoundCloud. So I think all of that is to say that we'll continue down that path. We'll be guided by the EBITDA and free cash flow generation of the company, the leverage outlook. We exited at 3.3x. So I think those tenets really hold true as we look forward to 2021.

And I'll just add to Sean's comments about M&A. I think we have the assets we need and are very focused on integrating them and continuing to execute on our plans for podcasting and growing digital audio advertising. But of course, with the capital we have available, we'll be opportunistic if other things emerge.

The next question is going to be from Vijay Jayant with Evercore ISI.

It's James Ratcliffe for Vijay. I have 2, if I could. First of all, the SAC on a per unit basis was down quite a bit in the quarter with that mix. So -- and how do we think about that going forward in terms of the mix of contracts and the like?

And secondly, on the Pandora front, monetization is really strong in the quarter, but listenership and MAUs and the like were down. How much room do you still have to move in terms of pricing power monetization? And what are the opportunities to sort of try to drive higher volume as well on that front?

So on the SAC question, our SAC per install as I assume what you're referring to there. And with the rollout of our new set of chipsets, we do have continued positive economics there. We're just starting to roll out our Jenny chipset. On the SAC expense side we have, as we mentioned, negotiated new agreements with a couple of OEMs. Is it -- the way we've always looked at these agreements is that we're focused on driving penetration and in a way that makes sense for both us and the OEMs, and that ultimately drives growth for the business.

And so there are a series of things we look at every time. We approach one of these new deals. We're constantly looking to optimize them in a way that works for both sides. So you may see changes in subsidies, but also see changes in trial lengths or prepays and revenue share as well. So it's really hard to look at one piece of the puzzle. That said, we would -- we do expect that our SAC expense per unit will decline over time.

On the -- on your question about Pandora, yes. Look, we're clearly focused on the decline in listenership, and we're continuing to find ways to work at that. We have been very focused on delivering new content, features like Modes, improving engagement across connected devices and in the car, and we'll continue to work at it. It has been harder than we expected. But to your point, the monetization has been very strong at Pandora. And John Trimble and his team have just done a tremendous job continuing to innovate with new ad products, pushing sell-through and driving up CPMs. And I would expect us to continue to be able to do this.

In addition to just driving the monetization at Pandora, it is a combination of assets we've now brought together enables us to really focus on providing advertisers with much broader solutions so that they can buy across multiple audio format. So with Stitcher and the ad tech side through ads with Simplecast, we can provide a host of solutions to Comcast creators to be able to distribute their podcasts and advertisers to be able to reach listeners there. And there's a lot of focus on podcasting. We expect that there will be continued growth here. It's approaching $1 billion in advertising revenue, which is still relatively small when you look at something like terrestrial. It's over $15 billion, but it is growing at double digits. And we expect to play a very active role in this market. And the assets we have with Pandora across ad sales and ad tech will help us really drive this.

Our next question is from Jessica Reif Ehrlich with Bank of America Securities.

I have a couple of questions on podcasting. Can you talk about the level of investment in '21 versus '20? And where you think steady state will be? I don't think you've ever said anything about the size of revenue, but if you could maybe address that and talk about where you are in terms of the advertiser, I guess, level of interest. I mean more and more people are talking to -- advertisers are talking about it. What -- are there certain brands that are coming in? Can you just talk about currency demand? And I guess, is demand being satiated by increased competition from iHeart, Spotify, et cetera? I'll just start with that.

Yes. I think, Jessica, on the level of investment side, I don't expect us to materially increase our organic investment. We are, as you know, we bought Stitcher, so we've fully integrated that. With the ad sales team going to John Trimble, who manages all of our ad sales and then, of course, the content teams going to Scott, and Scott can talk more about that in a minute. But the key is to focus on increasing our owned and operated catalog of podcast as well as those that we represent in -- for ad sales and tech.

And so we believe there's a lot of opportunity for us to grow that. It is much smaller than the advertising revenue we drive out of Pandora. But again, I think it's very complementary. If you ask John's team, they're clamoring to be able to sell across music and non-music format. So to be able to have the set of assets together really provides us with the opportunity to drive that advertising revenue and also just having the set of ad tech solutions allows us to be kind of a full end-to-end solution for the creator side as well. Scott, do you want to comment on content philosophy?

Sure. So just 2 quick things. One is our own brands, as Jennifer mentioned, they're very vital in this and we're just getting to the point where we're seeing where that will go. So the Kevin Hart as an example, is a very important one because the key I find with podcasting, putting aside the fact that most big names and most big brands are actually not in podcasting yet. And I think that's where the opportunity is. But when you look at Kevin, we used his radio show, the Pandora platform, Stitcher and the outside -- all outside platforms with Kevin, both to monetize that and create it. And it's done really well right out of the box, including really strong advertising numbers. Whether it's Andy Cohen and Jeff Lewis and others that are starting to show, we have a built-in platform of content that's ultimately going to convert in different ways into podcasting on that.

The other thing is sophisticated producers out there like Ben Silverman and others that have deals with us now that are looking for entities that are full-service 360, from curation and marketing and promotion and everything else, and they don't want to go into podcasting unless they feel not only it's worth their time and economic potential, but it allows them the ability not to damage their brand or do anything along the way. So we feel pretty good where we stand right now as far as being able to get it out there.

Do you expect to break out podcasting as a separate line? And then just a different question for Scott. But it feels like the pace of channels of the content is accelerating. Maybe because it's stuff that I love and I'm paying more attention. But it does feel like it's accelerating. Can you just talk a little bit about the '21 outlook? And what else could come down the road?

So in terms of -- Scott, let me just start on the reporting.

Yes.

I mean from a segment standpoint, we'll include it with Pandora. And that's just a natural fit given kind of the focus on advertising overall. And Scott, do you want to add on that?

Yes. I mean Jessica, as you know, for the years, we generally look at very interesting personalities and brands. And we are -- and there'll be some announcements to come in that area in podcasting. But what I really am interested in is people and brands that can work organically, not forced in all 3 platforms because, as Jennifer mentioned, once you get into cross-monetization, cross-promotion, efficiency of production costs, it's an entirely different model that's out there. So that's really where I think we're going to end up going.

Can I ask one last question, which is completely different? But you recently -- and you alluded to this earlier, reworked some of the OEM deals. Can you talk about those deals, how we should think about the subscriber and financial impact in both the short and longer term?

I think the key, Jessica is, again, driving penetration. So every time we approach one of these deals, and our objective is always to extend them and make sure that in those extensions, we find ways to continue to increase penetration so that it makes sense for both sides of the equation, right, both us and the OEMs. So over the long term, all the deals are positive contribution to EBITDA and free cash flow. And there may be some differences, as I mentioned earlier, in terms of the impact to different metrics in the short term, but those essentially wash out a net positive over time. So we're very eager to continue to roll through and see improved penetration rate even up a little bit this year because, obviously, more radio selling cars, the longer tail we have on the used car side as well.

And as part of these agreements, we continue to focus on 360L, and we're really excited to see the ramp in our 360L numbers. We should be at 25% of our trial starts with 360L this year. We continue to see encouraging trends there. It's actually been great because some of the initial implementations have come in vehicles that have these massive screens. So consumers have reacted really positively to the new features and content that's included there.

The next question is from David Joyce with Barclays.

A question along the 360L lines. There was the announcement earlier this week of Ford and Google Android platforms. While it does seem to be somewhat open, how does that impact your usage you think in the car? Is that coming along with these new OEM deals? Are there any protections that you have for 360L? Are there any exclusions that are going to be somewhat of a challenge?

Sure. We've always had a clear competitive advantage in the car, as you know, especially given that we're in 80% of new cars sold now and continue strengthening our OEM relationships. We've always faced competition in the car in various forms, including with CarPlay and Android Auto now for years, and we still maintain a strong position and strong conversion rates despite that.

So we're deeply integrated with the OEMs. We're well aware of the Android Auto operating system and Google Automotive Services and those products. As the OEMs will allow these new operating systems, we'll continue to work with them to ensure that we have premium placement in the car. Our interests are aligned with the OEMs that they share in our revenue. And we both want to make sure that we're offering the best experience for our SiriusXM trialers and subscribers. We're working closely with both Google and the OEMs to ensure we can leverage this new operating system in the most efficient way possible to deliver our content into the car. It -- AAOS can actually make it even easier for us to add functionality and update our experiences over time.

Again, connectivity in the vehicle is good for us, right? We can roll out new features more quickly, we can add more personalization to our products. Then -- we know this space really well. We know what works. We've been very focused, especially in designing 360L that we understand exactly how to minimize driver distraction and to design really the most compelling consumer audio experiences in the car. So I think net-net, it will be a positive for us.

The next question is from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

I have, I guess, 2 questions. One around digital-only subscriptions and also one on sort of margins and they're related. Maybe for Jennifer and Scott, you guys seem to be having some success accelerating success on streaming only. I don't know if you'd be willing to tell us what percentage of the fourth quarter net ads came through digital only. You mentioned it was the largest ever, but thought I'd take a shot. What are you guys doing to accelerate that in '21 and beyond? How do you size that opportunity? Do you think you could have 20% of your subscriptions long term being digital only? And can you do all that while avoiding sort of the content wars that I think a lot of investors are concerned about when they see some of these big headlines, either in M&A or talent deals.

And then on the margin side, kind of related, maybe for Sean. Sean, we've been really spoiled following this company with consistent margin expansion year after year after year. '21, I think for reasons we all get, is an anomaly. But as we look beyond '21, should we expect to see kind of the operating leverage in the business over time that we've come to get used to? Or do you think things have structurally changed? And if I could sneak one more in for Sean. Since you've got fresh eyes on the business, anything you would call out about the company that you think The Street either is missing or under-appreciating would be interesting, too.

Okay. So I think I got 4 questions. We'll try to tich them off. And I'll start on digital subscribers. So our streaming stand-alone, our digital subscribers are still small. And yes, it was a nice contribution in the fourth quarter. And we're continuing to look to drive that, but it's growing, but it's still a small component of the 31 million self-pay subscriber base. So we're not ready to report on the numbers yet.

I'd also say that we have continued to drive streaming among our satellite subscribers. It's very key to engagement, retention for those subscribers. So these efforts go hand-in-hand. You definitely see younger generations streaming, which is not surprising, both on the digital-only side and our satellite subscribers. And the use of our products outside the car clearly helps with content discovery, which is more challenging in the car. I'll let Scott talk a little bit about the content, but we're looking across packaging, marketing. I think we've done a really good job on the digital subscription side, on performance marketing. We'll continue to expand that. We're looking at some creative distribution deals and to continue to grow the subs. But we are looking at this and growing this into a new funnel. It's just still early days yet. And look, our -- I know you'll come back -- we'll come back around and talk about margin a little bit more, but the economics on our streaming business, our digital-only subs is really strong compared to what you see certainly in the interactive space. So we feel really good about that as well. Scott, do you want to talk a little bit about content for digital-only insurance?

Sure. So we're really excited about the potential of this because as hard as it is to believe, in some ways, we're bandwidth constrained with the music community in particular. So this gives us the ability to take look in 2 different ways. One, our homegrown channels to take coffee house, the decades where we can combine '80s and '90s and all that into 1 channel digitally and things that people have been asking for a long time.

In addition, our artists now are looking at how they can expand and we've wanted this for long a time. We just haven't had the ability to have the bandwidth. So for instance, we're looking -- we recently launched the Bob Marley channel. There'll be derivatives of that. LL Cool J and his Rock the Bells channel, is going to do a lot with that. The Grateful Dead, likely we'll do more channels under this digital umbrella. That's sort of where we're going. Just for one second on where we've been on the digital side. When the first corona thing and people were really locked down, we did a series of artist channels from Led Zeppelin, to Prince, to many things, the Rolling Stones that were a function of both satellite and digital. And it gave us a lot of flexibility to put it up for a week and then save the remaining 30 days or whatever will be digitally. So we're going to continue not to view digital as an afterthought, but really as an extension of everything we're doing on the satellite with the content, the brands, the artists and all that. So that I hope will continue to have it grow.

Great. Sean, do you want to pick up the margin?

Yes. Ben, just on your 2 questions. Related to margins, I think there's absolutely operating leverage in the business. Obviously, as we talked about today on the call, there's some unique impacts in 2021 that are occurring. But as I look long term, as we get to a more normalized state in terms of car sales, in terms of penetration rates, hopefully, the royalty situation is settled in. I think there's absolutely opportunity for operating leverage and margin expansion. But again, it's -- I don't think anything structurally has changed. We just had some unique impacts as we start to rebuild things here in 2021.

So as it relates to the fresh eyes, 90-plus days in, I guess, I continue to have tremendous confidence. I think we've talked a lot about content. Today, it's obviously something I'm very familiar with my background. So I think there's a great opportunity with the content investments we have made as a company. I'm thrilled with the multitude of platforms and monetization opportunities that exist. As Jennifer said, we've got a tremendous position in the car. I think the ability to drive adoption out of the car digitally in terms of streaming-only customers is fabulous, a leader in digital audio sales.

All that to say, Ben, I think there are tremendous opportunities for growth at SiriusXM. So I think there's, again, always opportunities for operating leverage and efficiencies. I think the company has done a wonderful job integrating the assets that they've acquired, but there's always opportunity for more to drive leverage on the top line. So again, that's -- those are some of my early perspectives.

And we'll take our next and final question from Brian Russo with Crédit Suisse.

A question for Jennifer and a question for Sean. So first, for Jennifer, I recently read that you're trying to acquire adjacent spectrum from AT&T and the WCS band. Would you be able to confirm that? And if that's the case, maybe you can discuss kind of why you'd be interested in that spectrum. And if it suggests that some of the strategic options for the spectrum that you kind of discussed that in the past or maybe off the table now.

And then for Sean, just real quick on the tax sharing agreement with Liberty Media. I've generally been thinking that with the NOLs running out that your cash taxes will be sort of increasing, and you'll -- not too far in the distant future, be a full cash taxpayer. Maybe you could help us understand what the implications of the Liberty Media tax sharing agreement would be on your cash taxes, that would be helpful.

Yes. So I'll start with the AT&T discussion. I mean the FCC has granted our application to acquire the licenses of the spectrum, which is adjacent to our SR spectrum, this is the WCS C and D blocks. We have worked closely with AT&T over several years to support them on their efforts here to use this. But because it is adjacent to our spectrum, we had -- and we had a coordination agreement with them, but it was very difficult to manage the interference.

So look, we've recognized together with A&T, the potential to use this -- some fair satellite capacity we have and to adapt our receiver technology in the spectrum to really use it for public service applications. And we've done things in the past like supporting FEMA during times of natural disasters. And this is really not profit maximization effort but more of a public service effort. And the second is small and the deal we did is relatively small, but it does protect us given that it's adjacent.

And Brian, on your tax sharing agreement question, I don't see any -- no implications from the tax sharing agreement. Again, we're looking out into the future, but we've already talked today about some modest increase in cash taxes for '21. You'll see in the K where our NOL position and tax credit situations are. So we feel good about it. I don't think the tax sharing agreement, frankly, doesn't have any real impact on our go-forward outlook in terms of our tax attributes.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you, everybody, for participating today, and we'll speak to you soon. Goodbye.

Goodbye.