Breaking News: IHeart absolute Bloodbath across US Today

[Deus Ex Machiato]

Did any of us see that coming in the 1980s and 90s when Clear Channel was, with the help of financing, buying up stations and small ownership groups? I didn't.

A few people saw some things coming, at least in the 90s after the Telecom Act hit the industry like a nuke from space. I remember when the station I worked for got gobbled up and at least one veteran talent who refused to sign his new contract was shown the door. Then the faxes flew fast and furious (remember faxes?) welcoming new properties to the "Clear Channel family of stations." I joked that one day we'd get a fax from corporate saying "we'd like to welcome the Moon to the Clear Channel family..." and that got a laugh. I also remember the foreboding when the business manager (of a station that used to hand out cash to the employee of the month at staff meetings) sent out a memo sternly instructing us to conserve paper clips. Turns out the nickname "Cheap Channel" was dead on.

The other interesting thing that happened that year was that I was at a morning show conference and one of the panels featured the aforementioned Kidd Kraddick (who was a terrific guy and a real visionary, RIP Dave) and he did a little presentation on this new "internet" thing and warned that if radio wasn't careful, it was going to eat our lunch. It didn't happen exactly the way he predicted, but...well...here we are.

As far as blame, goes, I think it can be spread around to a lot of places including basically everyone ensconced in corner offices who didn't listen to people like Dave and others....insisting for too many years that nothing was wrong and ignoring disruptive events like Napster upending the record industry. Radio was not alone in this. I remember sitting in a meeting with a local TV executive in the late 90s who brought out stats that showed that OTA viewing still dominated the market and that all this talk about broadcast media being in danger was just a lot of talk.

Change is hard. Unfortunately this week a whole lot of iHeart employees are going to have to deal with change imposed upon them by forces beyond their control. Been there, done that. I hope they can land on their feet.

 

[BostonRadioListener]

You can believe whatever you want to believe. Meanwhile you're doing so using the internet, which has destroyed hundreds of businesses, including broadcasting.

The "convenient narrative" is a fact. There is nothing any broadcaster can do that will cause the public to shift from its digital devices to radios. That isn't a convenient narrative. It's a fact. As I said, it affects everyone, not just iHeart. It affects WMEX. How many live & local DJs do they have?

It’s a declining business that earns $686 million for greedy IHeart. We should all be in such “decline”!

That’s what IHeart EARNS after it pays everybody and everything —paying salaries, utilities, every penny of rent…everything…except ONE littie bill:

Then they pay 1 final bill: debt interest.

Then guess what’s left? Almost nothing.

 

[BostonRadioListener]

Bob Pittman and Rich Bressler have been kicking the same financial can down the road for well over a decade. While iHeart occasionally manages to eke out a quarterly profit, the business model remains fundamentally broken under their shell game. They have excelled at one thing above all else, enriching themselves.

iHeart employees continue to be treated as expendable tools in the executives' shed, strategically disposed of in the company's power rotation of layoffs to hit the cost-reduction numbers needed for Bob and Rich to get their multi-million dollar performance bonuses and contract extensions.

These guys steered the company straight into bankruptcy and instead of being ousted, they not only kept their jobs but have continued to pad their wealth. Meanwhile, the company remains buried under a mountain of debt, surviving as an executive piggy bank while local radio talent (the ones with actual talent), pay the ultimate price.

---

Pittman has been playing a con game for decades. He’s the worst of the worst.

 

[PTBoardOp93]

It’s a declining business that earns $686 million for greedy IHeart. We should all be in such “decline”!

That’s what IHeart EARNS after it pays everybody and everything —paying salaries, utilities, every penny of rent…everything…except ONE littie bill:

Talk about a "convenient narrative" detached from reality.

$686 million is what iHeart reported as "adjusted EBITDA". That excludes a lot of bills. The acronym is "Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization." This is not a GAAP item, meaning that iHeart can manipulate it so long as it is reconciled to their GAAP metrics.

One big item that is excluded is "restructuring costs", which were about $78 million. That's largely employee severance from last year's layoffs. Another, larger item excluded is impairment. iHeart's balance sheet includes the estimated value of their FCC licenses and other assets. The company wrote those down by $214 million in 2025.

Interest is the largest item, but is nowhere near $680 million or whatever number you made up.

 

[Motown]

Talk about a "convenient narrative" detached from reality.

$686 million is what iHeart reported as "adjusted EBITDA". That excludes a lot of bills. The acronym is "Adjusted Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization." This is not a GAAP item, meaning that iHeart can manipulate it so long as it is reconciled to their GAAP metrics.

One big item that is excluded is "restructuring costs", which were about $78 million. That's largely employee severance from last year's layoffs. Another, larger item excluded is impairment. iHeart's balance sheet includes the estimated value of their FCC licenses and other assets. The company wrote those down by $214 million in 2025.

Interest is the largest item, but is nowhere near $680 million or whatever number you made up.

People can hate and bash and complain all day long about radio companies. It is certainly difficult when you have been laid off. No question. The reality is income will continue to decline while expenses continue to go up. Audiences contain to dwindle so advertisers will pay less to reach their target audience as long as they see value. Cutting costs is the only answer to the situation. That means people unfortunately. Although difficult, how else do you significantly cut expenses without reducing people?

 

[TheBigA]

That’s what IHeart EARNS after it pays everybody and everything

That's for the whole company. Not just broadcast radio. The broadcast radio division lost over $100 million in revenue last year irrespective of debt. The audience for traditional, locally hosted radio isn't enough to retain all local hosts. That's a simple basic fact. There's no reason radio can't take advantage of the same technological advances all of us use in everyday life. Other than this need to hold on to the past.

 

[sacredcod]

I am not someone who knows a lot about the behind the scenes. This thread has been helpful. It is obvious iHeart and the other major radio companies are in worlds of debt that they may never be able to repay. People are not listening and if they are it is not translating into money to pay the bills. From what you are saying local owners are not buying like they had been. What happens now is my question. This seems too big to turn around. I hope I am wrong.

 

[TheBigA]

What happens now is my question. This seems too big to turn around. I hope I am wrong.

The public isn't going back to transistor radios. That's the simple reality. The generation that grew up with the internet doesn't have this need for live & local talent. They listen to music radio for the music. Those who like talent with music have no problem streaming it from other places. So broadcast radio has to adapt and change with the audience. At the same time, the owners have to build new businesses and revenue streams that utilize the content they have in ways people can use on devices they have.

As far as the talent, they need to work on building their own fan bases. They should think of themselves as recording artists, creating content for their fans. That way, if they lose their radio job, they have a fan base that will seek them out.

What we're seeing in radio is also affecting TV. Linear real-time media consumption is declining. There's no such thing as "must see TV." So all the layoffs you're seeing now in radio will be coming soon to your TV stations.

 

[Cap-n Spackle]

I have noticed in the last few months that in certain time slots, they aren't even running ads in the usual ad breaks, but run long promos for their own podcasts instead.

 

[TheBigA]

What happens now is my question. This seems too big to turn around. I hope I am wrong.

I'll add this to what I said previously: I don't see a long term future for radio as a music delivery service. That's my general view. There are formats of music that are working just fine right now. There seems to be a view among non-commercial radio that they see a future in music for them. That would be for classical and AAA formats. But I think several genres of music are declining on radio because the music has become less consensus and more individual. That's a music issue more than a radio issue, but it obviously affects radio.

If the music industry gets its wish for a new artist and label royalty, that will have a major impact on the future of music on the radio. That may be weighing on iHeart's decisions to centralize their music formats.

Where I see the future for radio is in news, talk, and sports. That's where the investment is going. There's where local talent is most useful. That's where the content can also be fed on digital platforms.

 

[vmorrison99]

If the 7 7 regulation was still in effect do you think these issues wouldn't have happened?

 

[TheBigA]

If the 7 7 regulation was still in effect do you think these issues wouldn't have happened?

Which issues? Bankruptcies? I think it was clear in the 80s that radio companies couldn't make enough money under the 7-7-7 rules. That's why the limits were increased. What happened at the time is many of the heritage radio companies, the ones that started radio in the 1920s, got out of the business because there were too many stations and too many restrictions for them to make money.

One of those companies was General Electric. In the early 80s, they sold their huge station WGY to a local company called Empire Broadcasting. Not long after they sold, Empire went bankrupt.

Keep in mind the 7-7-7 rules were dealing with a radio industry with about 4000 radio stations, and a lot of them weren't viable. But when they talk about "scarcity of the spectrum," that's what they were talking about. There were mainly AM stations, and only a few per town. Then all of a sudden, FM added a few thousand more stations. Then you had Docket 80-90 come along and add even more stations. Then you had move-ins to markets. All of a sudden the scarcity of the spectrum was proven to be false. Since then, the FCC has added LPFMs and translators to the spectrum. So apparently it's not so scarce anymore. You keep chopping up the pie in smaller pieces, and it's harder for anyone to stay in business. That's the situation we're in now.

If you study the context of ownership rules, had they not been loosened, a lot more stations would have gone bankrupt.

 

[davideduardo]

The big 3 and a bunch of other radio operators that wall street and private equity loaded up with debt are just debt paying organizations.

Wall Street did not “load up” group broadcasters with debt. The groups did that themselves to be able to buy as many stations as possible in the mid-90’s.

 

[davideduardo]

Radio growth is soft. I get it. Breaking News. Welcome to the 21st century. Yes.

There is no growth. Listening levels ate 75% less than they were 25 years ago with PUMM around 5 when it used to ve from 18 to 21 depending on the market.

With all the whining about soft revenues—a debt free IHeart would be awash in profits and be able to pay many thousands of employees..

We’re it not for the 2008 mega recession, the advent of the PPM, and the introduction of the smart phone, the radio industry could have easily sustained the degree of debt that was created mostly in the 1995 to 2000 years of ultra consolidation.

 

[davideduardo]

Declining business? You’re buying the convenient narrative.

So you are ignoring a 70% to 75% decline in inflation adjusted radio revenues in the last 20 years?

It’s a DEBT problem. MUCH more than a sales problem.

As I said in my prior post, there was a “perfect storm“ in the 2008 to 2010 period consisting of the introduction of the PPM, the introduction of the smart phone and the huge recession of those years. The debt was sustainable up till then, but the combination of three insurmountable occurrences destroyed the possibility for any broadcaster who had made large acquisitions in the later 90s to sustain profitability

Several aspects of IHeart are in growth phases:

IHeart Podcast revenues: UP 26%

IHeart Digital Audio Ex-Podcast UP 7%

Broadcast radio is down 4%, sure absolutely ..

But this is NOT a bloodbath massacre story on the sales side..it’s only on the employee head count side.

Those divisions are up, but nowhere near nearly enough to make up for the industry loss of 75% of Its revenue in the last 20 years

That’s the brutal truth and why I hate this company.

So iHeart created the recession, instigated the PPM, and invented the smart phone. I did not know that. Thank you for clarifying it.

It’s all about their arrogant managers —and debt holders.

The managers no matter at what level are simply trying to deal with an economic situation nobody could predict in the 1995 to 2000 period. The debt holders simply lend money to people they think will pay it back and give them interest and exchange for the loan. The lenders have no fault here, just as they didn’t in 1995. The numbers predicted that consolidation would produce a great improve improvement in radios, revenues, and profits.

 

[nowradioguy]

This may be super naive, but I'm not an insider, so it's just a thought.

Maybe some of these debt-ridden owner/operators should consider turning in SOME of the licenses of stations in EACH of their markets (large, medium, small), which would certainly thin the herd. Then they might be able with the money they (might) have to maintain the high quality of programming and on-air talent at the stations they choose to keep going.

 

[TheBigA]

Maybe some of these debt-ridden owner/operators should consider turning in SOME of the licenses of stations in EACH of their markets (large, medium, small), which would certainly thin the herd. Then they might be able with the money they (might) have to maintain the high quality of programming and on-air talent at the stations they choose to keep going.

You must mean selling stations, because turning in licenses doesn't make any money.

You're assuming hiring local talent equals high quality. You also assume today's radio audiences want talk on their music stations.

The reason iHeart hasn't sold any stations is it decreases their inventory. They can't add more commercials to stations, so they need every station.

The other issue right now is the only people buying signals are religious broadcasters. Is that what you want?

WZLX will not suffer any loss of audience if they don't replace Jameson in evenings.

 

[Uncle Kaimbridge]

iHeartMedia Cuts Expose Radio's Biggest Lie

Let's drop the "content is king" mythology once and for all — because it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

barrettmedia.com

 

[MarkW]

Docket 80-90 was mentioned earlier.

The explosion in FMs serving certain large Metro areas mostly aligned with population growth. I'll cite Atlanta and Phoenix as examples.

There was an influx of move-ins after the Telecommunications Act was enacted, too. I'll cite Atlanta and Salt Lake City as examples.

In some places, such as Chicago, there wasn't much change since enactment of 80-90. Suburban signal numbers were affected, but those collectively command a very small percentage of total market revenue.

 

[MarkW]

I'll add this to what I said previously: I don't see a long term future for radio as a music delivery service. That's my general view. There are formats of music that are working just fine right now. There seems to be a view among non-commercial radio that they see a future in music for them. That would be for classical and AAA formats. But I think several genres of music are declining on radio because the music has become less consensus and more individual. That's a music issue more than a radio issue, but it obviously affects radio.

If the music industry gets its wish for a new artist and label royalty, that will have a major impact on the future of music on the radio. That may be weighing on iHeart's decisions to centralize their music formats.

Where I see the future for radio is in news, talk, and sports. That's where the investment is going. There's where local talent is most useful. That's where the content can also be fed on digital platforms.

Extremely well stated.