First Quarter iHeart Cutbacks Likely to be Deep

INSIDE …

  • Out of places to eliminate iHeart employees there’s only one that has been “hands off” for years -- that looks like it’s about to change in 2022.
  • Their next “Excellence Centers” idea to further consolidate programming. 
  • The ad economy has still not recovered but the anticipated iHeart RIFs are being driven for a very different reason.
  • iHeart/Clear Channel has been laying off for two decades, here’s their most predictable pattern.
  • iHeart has been averaging $50 million in cutbacks a year – here’s next year’s number.

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The FM Solution for AM Stations

AM is in danger of dying for no good reason

  • My students can barely name an FM station, frequency or type of programming on the air and have no idea what AM radio is – and I’m talking about my USC students years ago as well as NYU music business students today indicating a death watch for AM among young people.
  • AM operators have been failed by the FCC and most importantly their lobby group the NAB which has talked a good game but left thousands of AM stations vulnerable and on life support.
  • If they can’t attract audiences younger than 60, AM will be all but gone in a few more years but there is an answer – provide incentives for consolidators who already have too many stations to run to do long-term leases to AM operators.

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Yesterday:  NPR and EMF Putting on a Clinic for Consolidators

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NPR and EMF Putting on a Clinic for Consolidators

Both NPR and EMF are funded by fandoms

  • NPR affiliates rely on begathons to raise money and NPR is supported by government funding.
  • Educational Media Foundation (EMF), a non-profit religious broadcaster is also reliant on its massive fundraising that allows the non-commercial operator to buy stations in just about every meaningful market – and prices they name.
  • While commercial radio groups flounder, lose revenue and cut costs, NPR and EMF run on a tight budget but they do things consolidators will not do – here’s how they are beating consolidators in audience, expense management and even podcasting – all things commercial broadcasters could readily copy.

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Audacy Salary Changes Starting in January

Top Execs Rewarded for Missing Revenue

  • David Field and his COO Susan Larkin are in for pay raises after a dismal year in which Audacy repeatedly missed its revenue projections and presided over the further loss of audience.
  • Rewarding C-suite officials for failure is not new to companies propped up with private equity money but is curious in the case of Audacy as they teeter on the brink of bankruptcy.
  • BUT, Field and Larkin are not the only ones who will see a change in their paychecks as Audacy station personnel are also in for significant changes ahead.

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NextRadio Version 2

  • A new venture to attract mobile listeners.
  • Another subscription service.
  • The income radio stations can earn from it.
  • The question of whether iHeart and Audacy sign on

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iHeart’s All-Podcast Radio Station

  • A two-year ratings analysis of the first all-podcast station
  • An important takeaway about listeners to podcasting on radio
  • Can radio make a sustainable format out of podcasting?
  • The best way radio can integrate podcasts with a high level of success

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Moneymaking NFTs for Radio

  • The crazy money consumers are spending on NFTs
  • A path to profit for recording artists (and potentially for radio stations)
  • Types of digital products stations could sell to an expanding market
  • See what the Stones, Grimes and artist Beeple are earning from NFTs

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iHeart Faces Unionization

  • Nightmare scenario: podcasters join a union against iHeart
  • Results of the other podcast union movements so far
  • The union movement moving to radio stations
  • Long-overdue benefits iHeart may be forced to eat as a preemptive move

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Rushing to Replace AM Talk Radio

  • The groups that are ready to deemphasize conservative talk
  • Damage from Limbaugh’s death and Bongino’s mouth
  • Format replacement options on the table for AM talk radio
  • Even more radical solutions presently discussed privately

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Audio Cooling Off, Some Music Genres Slipping

  • The emerging post-lockdown listening changes that leave radio stations out of sync with their audience.
  • New study on the effect of working remotely on radio.
  • Changes in music genres (you’ll never guess the genre that skyrocketed during the lockdown, it’s out of nowhere). If you can name it, you’re really tuned in.
  • The new rules for stay-at-home listener engagement. 

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Audacy’s January Blitz

  • Year-end cost-cutting
  • The next phase of regionalized formats
  • An Audacy format that will be virtually eviscerated to save money
  • Auditors to decide Audacy’s future path

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Your Next DJ May Be a Robot

  • Bad news for voice actors and voice trackers
  • It’s being done right now on a radio station, more planned
  • The most likely major radio group to go first
  • Big implications for local ad campaigns

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Streaming Wants to Be Radio Now

Digital one-to-one media has disrupted the music business and radio by transferring their products and services to online access but now there are real signs that these disruptors want to be more like radio than simply large libraries of music – they see an opportunity to do what radio has stopped doing.

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