By upgrading their audio, companies can provide a better experience and gather data on listening habits
Most companies release their earnings calls as an MP3 file that can be listened to at any time but, in most cases, clicking on the link just launches your computer’s audio player and then plays the file. Those MP3s are old hat. Many have now moved to podcasting or webcasting – though some are better at it than others.
Back in 2006, when podcasting earnings calls were described by IR Web Report as a ‘fringe activity’, some companies were mentioned as innovators. IBM was singled out for praise, especially for a series of podcasted interviews with experts that were designed to let investors know about the company’s strategy in specific product and innovation areas. All sounds good – except that the series started in 2005 and ended in 2006.
At the time, IBM said it was redesigning its IR site and that the series would resume, but it never did. Interestingly, IBM also began posting its earnings calls on iTunes in 2008, continuing until 2012, and then stopped this practice as well. Its earnings calls are still available on its investor relations site, both as simple MP3s and as a webcast that includes not just the audio but also the presentation slides.
To listen to the webcast, you need to register with IBM’s IR site – and that’s the important part. ‘With podcasts and webcasts you get more data on who’s listening and who’s sharing,’ says Braden Maccke of IR Smartt, a consultancy offering digital IR solutions.
‘Podcasts are going to get more coverage, and there’s the ease of listening. Of course, analysts who are big on a particular stock are going to be on the call live, but others – retail investors, for example – who are thinking of taking a position are not necessarily going to be able to make time for every call they want to hear while it is actually being held. Maybe they can’t get back from work in time, so they can come back at their convenience and check the comments on the company’s site or on iTunes.’
Unlike IBM, General Electric still posts podcasts of its earnings calls on iTunes, but also has a webcast available on its IR site, which is like IBM’s: the audio of the call plus the slides of the presentation. In order to listen to the webcast you need to register on an external site with your name, company name and email address. All that data is useful for the IR department, and if the podcast is listened to via iTunes the data on who is listening is also available. But GE doesn’t just post its earnings calls on iTunes; it posts all sorts of presentations, some of which are hugely popular, despite their length. A three-hour investor presentation on GE Digital, for example, tops GE’s iTunes list in popularity.
Apple itself, of course, releases its earnings calls on iTunes. But the company goes one step further, releasing what it calls ‘Keynotes’: two-hour video presentations from Apple’s management that are more akin to rock concerts than typical earnings calls. With standing ovations for CEO Tim Cook and bursts of applause for particularly interesting developments, they also often contain glossily produced videos. ‘Podcasts can be edited carefully, which can improve audio and/or video quality and the listening experience significantly, especially if the call was recorded live,’ Maccke points out.
One development that is growing – though not used by any of the companies mentioned above – is the release of earnings calls in chapters. ‘If you add chapters, you can skip content you are not interested in,’ says Maccke.
Of course, all podcasts – even if they’re not broken into chapters – offer the ability to fast forward. ‘If you are not interested in a particular comment, question or answer, you can just skip forward,’ Maccke adds. ‘That means that if you have a specific focus you can listen to a 45-minute call in five to 10 minutes.’
For a busy analyst, that’s a huge advantage.
