“We have transformed a traditional broadcast radio company into a true 21st-century multiplatform, data-driven, digitally focused media and entertainment powerhouse with unparalleled reach, products and services now available on more than 200 platforms,” Robert W. Still, iHeartMedia has moved aggressively into the online market, renaming itself four years ago after a music app that its disc jockeys promote relentlessly on the air. There are eight iHeart stations in Los Angeles, for example, and six in New York, including Z100, a pop powerhouse. The company’s terrestrial stations, it says, reach 271 million people each month, and in many markets it operates multiple outlets. IHeartMedia has maintained that its radio stations remain popular and vital even as it has introduced apps and negotiated new licensing deals intended to control its royalty payments online. By 2021, the report projected, that figure, for terrestrial broadcast stations, would reach only $16.6 billion, with a 10-year compounded annual growth rate of just 0.425 percent.
Its media division, which includes the broadcast stations, a popular music app and a unit that syndicates shows by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others, had $3.6 billion in revenue and $735 million in operating income.Īnnual advertising, radio’s chief revenue source, has hovered around $16 billion for years, according to a report last year by the accounting firm PwC. It said it would continue to operate its stations during the process.Īccording to court filings, iHeartMedia, known as Clear Channel Communications until 2014, paid $1.4 billion last year in interest on its debts. The company announced that it had reached agreements with creditors to reduce its debt by more than $10 billion. Its roughly 850 stations, the most of any American broadcaster, still wield considerable hitmaking power, even in the age of streaming.īut on Thursday, iHeartRadio’s parent company, iHeartMedia, filed for bankruptcy protection in an attempt to restructure part of the $20 billion debt load that has burdened it since a leveraged buyout a decade ago, on the eve of the 2008 recession.
Ed Sheeran, Eminem, Maroon 5 and Cardi B all performed on Sunday night as part of the iHeartRadio Music Awards, a testament to the company’s dominance over the radio business.
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