Welcome back. We're here with SiriusXM's Zac Coughlin, Chief Financial Officer. Great to have you with us. Welcome, Zach. Your first time here.
Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Yeah, no. Zach, you joined SiriusXM at the beginning of this year with experience across the automotive, consumer, and retail sectors. Now that you've had nearly a year inside the company, what has stood out to you the most about the business relative to your expectations, and where do you see the greatest opportunity from here to create shareholder value?
No, I guess it's what a lucky time to join. If you think about it, three major things that I think are exciting as we look ahead. We've got really the durability of the business model, the opportunities for growth, and optionality. I think maybe if I'll take a moment to rewind backwards to the end of 2024, and we refocused the strategy at that point in time on three major pillars. First off, strengthening the subscription business through elevating the in-car experience, accelerating advertising growth, and leveraging scale to drive efficiencies and shareholder value. You fast-forward now to the first half of the year, and you can see that really paying off. Right? First half of the year, revenue growth of 1% in both business channels growing. EBITDA growth of 5% and free cash flow growth of 67%.
It's really a payoff for the work that began for the end of 2024. If I go back to the three points of what excites me, about having joined now, on the durability side, on the subscriber base, I think if you take a look at our long-term loyal subscriber base, over 50% of our subscribers longer than 10 years, which is remarkable in a subscription model from there. And you can see that in record low churn, that we're putting up record high customer satisfaction, and so the stability that that brings inside of the business. And I was most familiar with that side of the business as a customer for many years before. Then you bring on the point on growth, and I think we see growth in the advertising or the subscription business, which we'll talk about.
But inside of advertising, I think, that's been a pleasant surprise as well to see that we have this second pillar of growth ahead of us. We're growing already. Then you talk about the YouTube business being added on top of there. I think I'm sure we'll talk about that here today.
We'll get to that for sure.
Yes. I think that's exciting. Then the idea of optionality, this is the new and emerging element of opportunity and shareholder value creation is really the optionality around our spectrum assets and what the opportunities are over time, to take advantage of those. You combine the three of those, and what you end up with is a great shareholder story. We're seeing that this year in the share price already. And I think as we look forward, the opportunity to continue to deliver great value to the shareholders through a number of elements that we have ahead of us.
So actually on that point, when you think about the next 3 to 5 years, where do you see the biggest growth opportunities? Those three things, specifically?
Yeah. I think what we're excited about is we see growth in both of our business channels, both subscription and on the advertising. They're a little bit different and probably sized a little bit differently as well. But on the subscription side, the focus on making sure that we continue the work that we've done about driving smart packaging and pricing strategy, that segmentation, driving value across each of those levels for our consumers, building up the ability to take pricing if the market allows. And we see that resulting in both the opportunity to take pricing and retention. So that leading to opportunities for growth on the subscription side, driving stability.
The advertising business, we're already growing the end of this year and the first part of the end of last year and the first part of this year, a few points of growth at that point in time. And then continuing on podcast, programmatic, and those growth pillars. Then you add YouTube on top of that, and I think both of those will lead to growth opportunities for advertising also. So you put the two of those together, and I think we feel great we've got a portfolio of opportunities to be able to grow the business, both of them with growth over that 3- to 5-year window.
Right. The second quarter included positive self-pay net additions, record low churn, which is, like, you already have incredibly low churn, revenue and EBITDA growth, as you just mentioned, and also, as you mentioned, substantial increase in free cash flow. How should investors distinguish between improvements that are structural and sustainable versus those that benefited from timing or other factors that just don't repeat?
Yeah, we feel great about the sustainability of the performance we've seen. I think there was a little, on the subscription side, there was maybe a little bit of timing in the second quarter, not a whole lot. The rest of the business improvements are largely structural. So if we think about what we're doing around adding value, creating the opportunity to take pricing, and leading to the subscription metrics we're seeing, whether it be the churn, as you mentioned, ARPU going up, our internal customer satisfaction metrics all going up. Those are all sort of structural improvements that we're seeing, not tied to timing. If you look down the rest of the P&L, the cost work that we're doing to make sure we're driving efficiencies as we leverage scale, largely speaking, that is structural in nature as well.
I think what that's leading to then is the outcome from a cash flow perspective combined with the decreasing satellite CapEx expenses that are structural as well. As we look forward, I think the performance that we've put up here in the first half of the year, including the second quarter, largely speaking, we're confident we should be able to continue with that strength through the rest of this year and building out into the next couple of years as well.
Can you provide any update on third quarter self-pay and trial start trends?
Yeah. We're largely on track with our plans for third quarter. I think what we'll see as we look into the third quarter is continued focus on the same elements of performance that we're seeing, right? That we expect churn to continue to stay low, continuous service driving a lot of that customer friction out of the process. Companion plan continues to be widely popular. Then of course, working on continuing to find that balance between conversion client and the sort of discount strategies we have to manage that trade-off process across the two of those. So I think on track for third quarter subscription, and we should be able to continue with some of the strong momentum that we've built throughout the year, this year so far already.
On that note, are there any initial thoughts you can share with us on how things are shaping up for 2027 subscriber growth?
Now, I know you wouldn't be looking to get 2027 guidance already. Of course not anyway. If Jen was here, she'd be kicking me under the table. I think 2027 for us and our prioritization will look very similar to what we've done in 2026 and to a certain extent in 2025 as well. Again, focusing on durability of the subscriber base, making sure we improve subscriber economics, adding value to the segmented subscription plans that the team has built the last couple of years. Then building the opportunity to potentially take pricing again, which would be in the third year in a row for that point in time. Again, working through that balance with a focus on the healthiness and durability of the subscriber base and long-term value of those subscribers.
So can we just stay on that for a second? In your view, how much runway remains for SiriusXM's subscriber growth?
Yeah. I think that we still see additional opportunity, but I think our focus you'll hear will be increasingly on subscriber revenue growth, and not necessarily managing solely to subscriber count growth. I think that we'll be working through to make sure that the durability and quality of the subscriber base as measured by that economic value, the long-term economic value of the subscribers really becomes the focus on that. I think that we've got strength there. We continue to build on what that would expect to be. The combination of the opportunity to build on the loyalty that we have, build on that customer satisfaction, continue to build on the low churn rates as we have, and balancing the opportunity around ARPU and pricing and prudently managing the discount structure with the subscriber count growth itself.
I think the net of that has continued growth for revenue growth opportunity for subscribers.
If you take the other side of that, it doesn't sound like subscriber growth is the key goal or priority. What do you see as the greatest risk to Sirius returning to subscriber growth? Like, what's.
Yeah, I think in the short term.
Like a loss.
Of course. Yeah. I think in the short term, of course, the biggest risk that we have sitting in front of us is what happens around the automotive SAR environment, right? Being with how important that part of the funnel is for us. With that being said, that is out of our control, and so that will come and go as it is, and we will adapt accordingly. I think our focus remains squarely on the things that are in front of us that we can control, regardless of where the SAR comes and goes. I think focusing on package and pricing, segmentation, adding value to each of those packages, clearly building the opportunity to take pricing, and we think that's the combination that will lead to what we have seen this year, which is improvements in ARPU, low churn, and increasing amounts of customer satisfaction.
We think that's the right combination, and that we can focus on and control. The other factors outside of there, we will sort of let that come as it is and adapt as it comes.
Right. So, following with some of ARPU increased in the second quarter. Churn to clients, as we know. Very encouraging combination. How do you think about the remaining pricing power? If the focus is on ARPU and driving ARPU, how do you think about the pricing power in the business and the trade-off between driving ARPU but protecting the subscriber base?
Yeah. I think we think about it less as a trade-off and more as a balance between the two of those. I think that we have shown the ability to build the ability to take pricing. This year, we took pricing for the first time ever in back-to-back years, and are still delivering the record low churn rates as we take a look across the two of those. So I think that balance is working for right now. As we look forward, I think the strategy will remain very much the same, which is focus on adding value for the consumers. That will build the ability to take pricing. Then we will work on finding that sort of balance across the subscription base as well as the pricing ability from there. I think that's the right combination that we have seen.
As you've mentioned a few times, adding value to each of the prices and packages. Can you talk a little bit about how you're thinking about adding value?
Yeah. I think this is a strategy we started at the end of 2024, building into 2025. For us, adding value is on a couple of dimensions. One is we can add with breadth of content. I think we've done that in terms of offering wider amounts of content to consumers. Then this past year, we offered with creating, widening the opportunity of consumption of content through something like the Companion plan inside of-- So our version of the family plan from there. So widening access to that content. I think those two dimensions will remain where our focus is on adding value. We recently announced SiriusXM Sports Pass, coming up here, which I think is a good example of really both of those dimensions.
It's a standalone package in itself, which we think expands the opportunity and access to our content, to a wider set of audiences outside the traditional automotive funnel. At the same time, we're offering it'll be offered as an add-on for free for our most valuable customers, and so it widens the access to content from there. So I think that ability to sort of widen the content we have and then who is able to access that, those two dimensions allow us-- I think anything we do would show growth across both of those. Or one of them as we move forward.
Just following up on the content. Scott Greenstein has done such a phenomenal job in really driving your content strategy.
Yeah.
It's always surprising what you're adding.
Yeah.
Can you just talk a little bit about the process. It always seems like you're not missing anything, and then he finds something.
We think it's one of our greatest competitive advantages, and in some ways, interestingly, what is still a great find for customers as they get to know us. You think about it, we have music, which in many ways people know us for, but broader than that, we cover all sports. We have news. We have comedy. That's been a new add. We have podcasting, talk, entertainment. We cover the full range, and I think that it's one of the things as we see that we do our value work with our customers, that breadth is something, there's a reason that they stay with us. Obviously, a lot of consumption of music still, and evolving across as music itself evolves, but I think that breadth is remarkable. So, again, as we'd say that we follow the consumer.
I think Scott and the team do a great job of making sure our eyes are squarely on where they're focused on, and that Sports Pass is a great example. We identified an unmet need that customers, out-of-market customers, that want to be able to still consume their in-market content and are unable to get it, a great opportunity across that piece from there. I think it all starts with the consumer and what they're interested in, I think, and then we follow in behind that. And you combine that with, obviously, the years of knowledge and know-how that Scott and the team bring, and I think that combination has been a winning success for us, why we have the loyalty that we do, and why we still continue to believe that what we're offering is a premium service.
Right. Is live an important part of that? There was a frenzy this summer, like last month, with John Mayer in the Hamptons. Literally, you couldn't go in any store anywhere without people saying, "Can you get me a ticket?
It was remarkable. I rode the bus out for the concert, and it was the talk of the bus.
Oh.
It was unbelievable, right? And I think that what it really highlights is something that fandom and superfan are big wide topics that are kind of emerging, and if we look back, it's been the center of our strategy from the very beginning. You think about artist-centric stations.
That absolutely is fandom. The live events, we do over 400 live events a year. Obviously, not all of them as big as the John Mayer event, but many of them large in size, and we've got more coming up ahead of us. I think what that allows for is you take the breadth of our content, and you combine that with sort of those magical experiences that we're able to do with customers, and you create connection with them that we think is a great opportunity and a point of differentiation and something that is not a new strategy for us, but is something that's been at the core of what we've been doing. The John Mayer event was just the latest in a string of what we've been doing for a number of years, and that we do seemingly monthly with events of that size.
Right. It was an absolute frenzy.
Yeah.
But switching gears.
Yeah. I'll talk about that all day anyway, so.
I've never seen anything like that, but anyway. The auto channel remains a core competitive advantage, but consumers increasingly enter a vehicle with access to numerous streaming services. From a financial perspective, how do you assess the durability and value of SiriusXM's relationship with automakers?
Yeah. We believe it is one of our most durable competitive advantages, built over 20-plus years of working closely with them on a couple dimensions. One, I think understanding each of their individual development processes to make sure that our integration into the car is core to what that is. They all have their own unique way of developing. I think that is a significant competitive advantage and hard to recreate. Then you look more widely, we've built relations with all of them that are really built on win-win economics. I think that keeps us closely tied together as we move forward. If you think about it, for us, as we think about the optionality that customers have as they think about consumption of that, in-car remains a lean back experience.
That integration into the car, the curation of the content that we bring to bear, I think, works very well for the consumers and, to a large extent, is an outcome of our very close work that we do with the automakers to continue to be relevant to them, and integrated to their development process.
Can you talk a little bit about the economics of new OEM arrangements evolving, or I should say, how are they evolving as connected vehicles and IP-based delivery become more important?
Yeah. I think at the core of that is what I mentioned, that we're looking to make sure that we remain with win-win economics with the automakers. I think that leaves us with the best stance to be able to remain relevant in the car. I think that's left us, in the vehicle itself, aligned to as they're developing. As the technologies of consumption or delivery evolve, I think we're well-positioned to be able to work with the automakers themselves to make sure that we're able to deliver. The economics themselves are sort of slightly different, but as you know, the car park evolves slowly as we evolve from there.
I think we remain on the front end of understanding how IP delivery direct into the car, connecting vehicles can be advantageous to the customer experience, as well as in terms of our delivery model from there. I think the economics remain consistently strong as for ourselves as well as with our automotive partners.
Can deeper integrations such as SiriusXM with 360L improve conversion and retention enough to offset any changes in economics? How do you think about that?
No, thank you for asking about SiriusXM with 360L because I should've mentioned that one earlier when you asked what surprised me joining. I think this new enormous data set of customer information that we're now getting. For so many years we had limited visibility into specific customer behaviors. In some way, the content choices we made over those years were remarkable. The teams were doing that with more survey-based information. Now, with the size of our installed base, I think we have amazing ability to understand what the consumers are consuming and how, and we're already embedding that into all elements of our go-to-market strategy. The programming decisions are being made based on that, both the content as well as even things like where in the channels to align content from there. It's being implemented into our go-to-market with our marketing strategies.
We're able to now create two-way dialogues with the consumers. It's developed into the content or product and technology strategies. We're building things like participatory listening. All those are enabled by 360L. And what those do is allow us to create a more one-to-one feeling of connection for customers, very much in some ways what they're used to with their other digital consumption activity, but yet in the benefits of in the car, so they can take advantage of the lean-back experience. Finding that magic middle between the two of those, that's all enabled by 360. And at the end of the day, if you're building greater connection and you're building greater loyalty, that will result in lower churn, better opportunity to potentially take pricing, and over time, a stronger subscriber base.
I think 360L sits at the center of that because of the data and information that it's now providing at a scale that allows us to make decisions across really all of the content and marketing portfolio.
Well, can we just level set? How big is 360L now, and how fast is it growing?
Yeah. I think, for all new vehicle installations, we're over 50% of what's being new cars that are being purchased today. And in total, it's over 20% of our total subscriber base, which I think allows us, that's a sample size of enough information to allow us to draw conclusions across the remaining set of listeners that are not yet on 360L.
You alluded earlier to the YouTube arrangement, which has become one of the most interesting new elements of the investment story. Can you walk us through the strategic rationale and explain what SiriusXM Media is providing that made you the right partner for YouTube?
Yeah. No, I think that second part of the question is actually a good part to start on. To a certain extent, the team has built over the years already a scaled, what we believe, one of the leading digital audio advertising companies in the marketplace. Of the $18 billion-$20 billion audio advertising marketplace, we are already around 10%, and much more of the digital audio advertising base. What we already had built was scale across the three main dimensions that you need to be successful. We have, obviously, the sales organization, we have the technology platform, and we have built relationships with all of the scaled advertisers. In some ways, the YouTube relationship, we were the obvious choice to partner with for them because we bring that. They obviously bring a scaled audience. We were already scaled. YouTube brings an additional scaled audience.
I think for us, the ability to take that increased audience set in. When we talk about audience, the combination of us and them now will reach 255 million Americans. 90% of the over 13 age listening population we now cover between the two of those. I think one metric that sort of also surprised me coming in is the average American listens to almost four hours of audio content a day. If you think about the ability to monetize that, now we are able to put ourselves in front of over 90% of that population. I think the combination of the platform that we have built and the scale and leverage of the audience that YouTube brings is really going to be an incredible combination.
Can you help frame the potential financial opportunity associated with the YouTube arrangement?
Yeah. We've been cautious thus far in quantifying the opportunity, and I know that their people are eager for us to do so. That's not because we're sort of being coy. I think we're spending the time with YouTube to make sure we understand what is the inventory, what is the content of that, and then how working with our advertising partners for them to also understand what is YouTube audio advertising inventory. We think what we'll do through probably the first half of next year will be in ramp-up mode, then we'll begin to see much more scaled material output from this probably in the second half of next year. It won't take that long for us to give a bit more detail and substance on how big we see the size of the opportunity.
We'll do that as we sort of get better insight over the next few months. But I think we see this as an important and material impact for revenue for us for the SiriusXM Media side of the business. Even for total SiriusXM, this will be a noticeable growth driver.
How should investors think about the economics? Is it a revenue share model, or is it a technology fee? Is it just incremental media inventory, or is there some combination of those things?
Yeah. It's structured like an ad rep deal is sort of how it's set up from there, and I think the economics will look similar to what that is. I think from that perspective, as we see the scale of this, we see the scale being important from both a revenue growth perspective, and we see the margin opportunity on this to be important as well as the structure of the deal will allow, obviously, YouTube as a partner to be successful, and we see this be able to be successful for us from a profitability perspective as well.
One more question on this.
Yeah, of course. No, like I said, we can take as much time as you want.
Okay.
This is a really exciting thing for us.
It is so interesting. Can you talk about the level of incremental investment that is required? You just said that it will help margins. Can you talk about advertising historically has been, well, traditionally has been a high margin business. Can you talk about the margin profile of this partnership?
Yeah. I think from an investment perspective, because we've already built a large amount of the scaled pieces required, whether that be the sales force, the tech platform, or the customer relationships, we don't see significant additional investment being required. There's elements of technology integration. That work began with YouTube even well before the announcement itself to make sure that there were no surprises there, and that carries on. We're in good shape there. Then any other investments around the fringes, I think we would view as more incremental than substantive. That's one of the great parts of having already built the scale of the platform as we have. From the economics of the deal itself, I think, an ad rep deal in general from a structure perspective, we think about our owned and operated platform, advertising platform, segment reporting, being high 20s.
I would say it's somewhere lower profitability than podcasts, but still in the range of where we would find for the rest of that O&O platform. So significantly profitable for us as a company.
Does this new relationship validate a broader opportunity for SiriusXM Media to provide ad tech and monetization capabilities to other third parties?
We're excited because it kind of makes a statement. We've had a number of questions since the announcement in the zone of kind of like, why SiriusXM Media? I think it's been a great platform for us to help people to see just what we'd already built even before this. So in some ways, it's validation of the work that Scott Walker and the team have done over the last several years to build this platform. So in front of us right now is the size and scale of what YouTube would be. But I think in that regard, to a certain extent, we've been doing businesses like this on a smaller scale already on things like SoundCloud. So this is just the next step up, and it's a big one.
But it's a capability we've been building, and this will give us the rest of the foundation, to be able to contemplate other business opportunities like this.
How large could the addressable market become if the company increasingly monetizes inventory that you don't own?
Yeah. If you think about it, the audio advertising I mentioned earlier, $18 billion-$20 billion annually. And so we were 10% of that before. That will continue to grow with our own organic growth as well as the YouTube opportunity. What we're really excited though is the work that this will continue to do to potentially widen the amount of monetization for audio advertising in total. If you think about that, four hours a day for the average American, and that is only resulting in $18 billion-$20 billion of advertising revenue. The challenge has always been on two measures, targeting and measurement with audio advertising. I think the work that we've been doing from a digital perspective on elevating our ability to do both of those dimensions, offers the significant opportunity to be able to expand that audience as well.
I think we see opportunity both from a market share take perspective as we grow the skill set, as well as expanding the entire audio advertising, which we believe is significantly under-monetized today.
Does this begin to reposition the advertising business from primarily a media sales organization towards a more scalable technology and marketplace model?
We see this generally as an extension of what we've already been doing. We've built the breadth of what the advertising business today is already quite impressive. We have our own on-platform elements to the advertising. We have programmatic, we have podcasting, we have the ads part of the business. So in some ways, we've already built a significant amount of breadth. We think the YouTube business fits inside of that part of the breadth of the business already. So I think in some ways, we've already done a good amount of that work, and I think now this allows us to sort of step forward with the size and scale that YouTube helps us to continue to deliver.
Advertising increased 5% in the second quarter and podcasting and programmatic were the strongest contributors. How sustainable do you think those growth rates are? And within all of the different pieces that are moving the business, where do you think the biggest opportunity to really drive the business and drive the margins are?
Yeah. We feel great about the growth opportunities, especially around podcasting and programmatic, as those continue to drive the business forward. I think what we'll see is growth rates in the second half will moderate a little bit off of those levels, not because of the underlying demand, but the comparable to last year. First half of last year was weaker than second half of last year. So the comparable gets a little bit tougher. That's really more about the trends from last year. The trend for this year in terms of ongoing underlying demand, we see that carrying forward from the first half of the year into the second half. And so feel great about the momentum that that's building.
Just to follow up on what you just said, can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the ad market currently? Any color on cancellations, if you even have that, but what categories are particularly strong or particularly weak?
Yeah. The environment remains incredibly constructive still. We've seen that work its way through and as we head in, we had a great moment around World Cup and with our focus on sports, that's been a big exciting moment. We come into the back half of the year, we've got the political cycle moving forward. There is category by category sort of differential from there as we see. Nothing, honestly, that's new or changing from the first half. The places that were a little softer in the first half and a little stronger have largely carried forward into the second half. As our order book fills finishing out this year, we feel good about how third and fourth quarter are looking. And obviously then build into the important period of getting advances for the 2027 period. I think we feel good about the momentum.
Environment stays constructive, and we feel great about the growth opportunities. Again, that's all even before YouTube starts to come into play.
Right. Podcasting, obviously, is growing very quickly, but it also requires investment in talent and distribution. How do you evaluate the return on podcasting content and talent agreements from a financial perspective?
I suppose there's art and science in there, and I think this is where we see where the company is. The mixture of those two is something that's made us great. Obviously, the programming teams are out identifying all of the great talent that's out there, both at scale today as well as new and emerging. I think the partnership between them and our advertising organization to make sure that as we make commitments to talent, that we've got a clear plan behind that. As you can imagine me sitting in my chair, I like to see the piece of that. Beyond that, the discipline we've got in place, I see the vast majority of the podcast deals also just to make sure that we are finding that right balance of being aggressive in the marketplace and putting our best foot forward and making sure we've got discipline.
I think the financial stability of that category for us from a profitability perspective also shows the embedded discipline inside of there. I think that will continue. Our goal is to make sure that we are both broad and relevant at scale, but that we do so with financial discipline that allows us to continue to hit our financial objectives.
Right. One more content question.
Yeah.
Then we have to move on. You mentioned earlier that you've recently expanded your sports offerings through SiriusXM Sports Pass, with new local sports stations, other partnerships, the Audacy deal. How do you assess the strategic and financial role of sports content within the broader portfolio?
Yeah. I think it aligns very closely to the question you asked earlier about how we think about program, how we find opportunities. If you take a look at sports from a video perspective, becoming significantly disaggregated, major friction point for customers. We have made the decision to run directly counter from that to aggregate. Now, one of our things we are most proud of is the breadth of sports we have. We believe we have all sports, and this was one small gap that we identified, and we have gone and closed that with something that is so the customer is able to get everything in one place is becoming increasingly important as we reduce friction. As you think about our listener base, the surveys we do, the value that they put to sports is outsized from that perspective.
I think that that is something, again, we talk about points of differentiation. Those relationships with the sports leagues, the content that we bring, the connection with consumers that way, it is a point of really big importance to us, and I think something that we will continue to invest in. Sports Pass is just the most recent example of that, but as new and emerging sports show up and opportunities, we would expect to add those to the portfolio.
Let us talk about spectrum.
Yeah.
How do you evaluate the strategic and financial value of your spectrum, and how should investors think about its potential beyond its current use in the satellite radio service?
Yeah. There's really two lenses on that. First and foremost for us, the first lens, it is a core part of our underlying and successful business model today. I think that's important to note that across all of the dimensions, which I'm sure we'll talk about, all of those are fully utilized in helping drive the underlying operating business today. First and foremost, it's that side. I think the second piece, though, it really does build optionality, and each of those has a bit of a different time frame and opportunity around each of those. I think that it serves both purposes as we look forward. I think that what's most important, though, is what it does is it builds for us sort of optionality in that medium to longer term range from a business model perspective to help deliver value for shareholders.
Right. Can you give us an update on the eventual consolidation of both the Sirius and XM.
Yep.
transmission platforms? What's the timetable for freeing additional spectrum, and is there anything you can do to accelerate that process?
Yeah. I think just for investors who are not as familiar with spectrum, and I'm also learning as my way in from here, is we've got 35 contiguous megahertz of spectrum right in the middle of mid-band, broken up into three segments. We have the C-band on either side, 5 megahertz. In the middle of the 25 that we have, the traditional satellite sort of our service delivery, we've got the lower 12 and a half and the upper 12 and a half. That is an outcome of the days of Sirius and XM being separate companies than together. We have been placing our all new customers onto the upper half of the 12 and a half for a number of years now. The number of customers between the lower 12 and a half and upper 12 and a half are unbalanced.
But that being said, to a certain extent, I suppose we're a victim of the success of our loyalty of our customers and that we still have a strong subscriber base on that lower side. We are customer first and foremost, and so for us, we don't want to do anything that moves away from making sure those customers continue to feel the same value of the service from there. With that being said, the churn rates are over the long history we have, are relatively knowable, and so we can see a future where that lower band is less utilized than it is today. I think for us, and we've talked about on earnings calls, the convergence of timeline on when that becomes more available is probably aligned to where the timelines of where some of the technology providers will also be up and running and operational.
I think in the interim, medium-term period, we don't see any need to do anything different with our strategy of making sure our customers love the service and feel that loyalty, and in turn build those partnerships that will allow us when the opportunity to be able to take more advantage of a wider set of the spectrum becomes available in that medium-term timeframe.
Right. Okay, last topic. You've reduced debt, reached your long-term leverage target. How has reaching that target changed the capital allocation framework for the second half of 2026 and for next year for 2027?
Yeah. I think for 2026 you'll see largely a continuation. We are inside the leverage range, but still at the sort of the top end of that range. I think we'll spend the rest of this year making sure that we get more squarely in the middle of the range that we've talked about of low to mid threes. What that then means is beginning in early 2027, a wider set of opportunities likely open up for us. As we think about the priorities, first and foremost, is always investing in ourselves, and I think the guidance we've given on the $1.5 billion for next year contemplates fully all investments required to help continue to grow the business. So we're comfortable with that. But if new things emerge, that'll be first and foremost on the priority set. Then you work our way down. Leverage is in the right range.
I think we're very comfortable there. You're talking about two channels. One would be anything related to inorganic activity, and I think we'll be opportunistic around anything that would come up there that helps us to drive the business forward. Likely more incremental than transformational, but regardless, we'll keep our eyes focused there. Then you're left with the trade-off of dividend and share repurchases. I think we feel good about our dividend, would be how I describe it. What that would mean is ultimately the opportunity to move significant amounts of new capital towards share repurchases beginning in 2027, which we think is a great deal. The share price is obviously increased this year, and we think appropriately so. Still a significant value to where we see the overall business opportunity.
We see that as a significant opportunity for us to drive shareholder value and return capital to shareholders next year and for the next couple of years beyond that.
Then I guess last question I'll just squeeze in the second.
Yeah. I'll be quick. I'll be efficient.
You said you've coupled with the dividend. How are you thinking about increasing the dividend?
No, I think that if we take a look, and we've done the work to study, like where the levels we have from a dividend perspective and what shareholder base we're able to attract with that, we think it's sufficient. The idea of growing the dividend and drawing in a new audience of investors that buy into companies that grow dividend over time, it's a long track record to build to draw them in. I think for us, we feel that we're sort of sufficient there and for right now are more efficient. Because where we see the opportunity in regards where the share price is today, that's still a significant investment, and so in the trade-off of those two, we see share buybacks as a clear winner.
Perfect. Thank you so much. We're like exactly out of time.
All right. Very good. Thank you for having us, I guess.
Thank you.
I really appreciate it.
Great. Thank you.