SiriusXM is targeting local and mid-market advertising revenue as its next major growth area, planning to actively hire staff to capture a large share of traditional radio’s ad dollars.
On the company’s 2026 second-quarter earnings call, Chief Advertising Revenue Officer Scott Walker called local and mid-market advertising “the next frontier” for SiriusXM’s ad business. “The opportunity here to grow overall share of market… is real,” Walker said.
“And we have an opportunity not just to retain and expand our existing relationships with brand advertisers, but open up to new categories. We talked about the younger demo. We talked about the multicultural opportunity, but also to go down market to mid-market SMBs, et cetera, that allow us to tap that local opportunity, which is a large, if not majority, percentage of the overall spend in traditional radio today. So we will hire to capture that market opportunity and expand our footprint in terms of coverage.”
The advertising strategy announcement ;ast week came the same day SiriusXM disclosed the departure of Chief Operating Officer Wayne Thorsen. Thorsen joined in December 2024 in the newly created role overseeing product, technology, commercial activities (including automotive and streaming distribution), subscriber acquisition marketing, and corporate strategy. An SEC filing stated there were no disagreements between the company and Thorsen. No successor has been named.
SiriusXM also reported second-quarter results that beat revenue expectations and achieved record subscriber retention. Total revenue rose 1% to $2.16 billion from $2.14 billion a year earlier. Net income increased nearly 17% to $239 million from $205 million. The core satellite radio business ended the quarter with about 33 million total subscribers. Average revenue per user rose 1% to $15.32.