Monthly Archives: June 2025

Monday, June 30, 2025

Retrofitting Radio with Video

The rush to add video to audio content is underway but creators appear to be getting it all wrong – the importance of video and of audio is being redefined as research shows they are making some big mistakes.

  • Shrinking attention spans are forcing short-form content.
  • The attention span on a screen was two and a half minutes on average in 2004 and by 2012 it was 75 seconds according to attention span psychologist Gloria Mark – 47 seconds within the past five years.
  • Audio podcasters who until recently have been slow to discover that they also need to offer video to their audiences are getting the call to video all wrong.
  • And this eyeopener: A total of 58% of YouTube video podcast consumption is listened to, not watched visually.
  • Radio thinks it needs video and video creators think that audiences are “listening” less prompting the critical question: which one is right and what do they really want?

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Friday, June 27, 2025

Radio’s Hidden Digital Margin Crisis

As radio group revenue continues to decline, digital has been rolled out as the savior of legacy media to offset declining ratings and aging audiences as industry executives pivoted to streaming, programmatic ads, and podcasting but research shows they are playing with the facts.

  • iHeart CEO Bob Pittman has frequently hammered the importance of digital even as the much smaller Townsquare delivered higher digital revenue percentages than his company (over 50%).
  • But then lately even Townsquare hit the digital wall getting caught up in CEO Bill Wilson’s “dis” of the radio industry being the cause of Townsquare’s problems.
  • Podcasting took over and occupied an alternate world even though in this world short attention spans made it impossible for podcasts to compete with radio let alone TikTok and impossible to offer enough commercial avails.
  • Littered with bankruptcies, the radio industry is still missing the point about if and where digital, podcasting and video fits in to its future – look no further than the gross margin comparisons for a wakeup call.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2025

“Visual Radio” Is on the Rise

Since its invention, radio has been an audio-only experience, but that’s changing fast as broadcasters are racing to be seen (and heard) in the very auto dashboard that gave dominance in consumers’ minds for decades.

  • As podcasting increasingly goes visual and car dashboards evolve into full-blown digital screens traditional radio is being forced into a new era: visual radio.
  • They are prioritizing live studio feeds to synchronized visuals that show up on in-dash displays. And with automakers, tech vendors, and ad buyers all leaning in, the shift from sound to sight may be radio’s most important transformation in decades.
  • Radio stations are embracing video formats (“visual radio”), adding camera feeds, studio graphics, and synchronized visuals to broadcasts.
  • Jacobs Media, the soothsayer of in-car entertainment reports that video is rapidly appearing on car dashboards making phone-accessible videos a new standard in modern vehicles.
  • In the rush, radio stations and owners may not only be missing the point but doing damage to a trend that could help them out of the doldrums – the evidence is mounting.

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Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Yelp Trashes Townsquare Interactive

The thing that Townsquare is so good at as far as using digital to bolster declining spot radio revenue – “digital-first” is digital worst in the minds of some user rating services.

  • Yelp gives Townsquare Interactive a 1.4 out of 5 stars with devastating comments that belie their public narrative.
  • Other services also reflect unfavorable comments but one gives them a 5 out of 5 – but it’s complicated.
  • The significance is that recently Townsquare CEO Bill Wilson publicly blamed radio for the company’s sagging fortunes.
  • But digital growth has slowed although up modestly in the previous quarter.
  • The question is: is digital the savior of radio companies and could this be why competitors seem to be deemphasizing its importance.
  • A low margin business with customers who obviously demand more than radio groups can offer substantiation by their unfiltered and honest comments about why they are turned off.

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Monday, June 23, 2025

A Potential iHeart Ownership Change

A recent iHeart FCC filing is revealing in several ways not the least of which is speculation around a potential change in ownership, control or strategic direction involving Global Media & Entertainment Investments known as GMEI.

  • That filing was likely a key driver of iHeart’s recent stock price uptick.
  • The filing didn’t come out of nowhere, and the stock moved before it hit the FCC’s public portal that strongly suggests someone did know, and acted accordingly -- the 20% jump in just a couple of weeks—equating to roughly $0.30–$0.35 per share.
  • GMEI insiders — including Ashley Tabor-King and his father Michael Tabor — can now hold more than 5% individually but not to exceed 14.99% combined.
  • They’re also requesting approval to shift ownership between GMEI-controlled entities which could streamline control, obscure real-time movements, lay the groundwork for future maneuvers possibly a proxy play, debt-to-equity swap, or strategic repositioning.
  • What it means: This is about a quiet power move with unintended consequences and the market is only now starting to catch on.

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Friday, June 20, 2025

A Crisis Developing at Townsquare

Townsquare Media is hitting the wall of its own “digital first” narrative as CEO Bill Wilson recently admitted publicly that radio is the company’s problem, a striking statement considering they still operate over 300 stations -- not just candid, it’s revealing.

  • Digital growth is stalling -- Townsquare claims over 50% of its revenue is digital but that’s not exactly right.
  • Radio revenue is declining and for whatever reason the company is openly acknowledging that it’s a drag on revenue.  
  • Lost almost half its stock value over the past full year as its digital-first strategy runs into headwinds.
  • Investors aren’t buying it – That’s with a chummy relationship with Noble Capital Partners shilling for CEO Bill Wilson who is often a participant in Noble events as well as other close ties.
  • Wilson’s quote essentially concedes what critics have long suspected.
  • What it means:  What’s Plan B after digital-first.

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Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Radio’s Problem with Attention Spans

  • What the data says on shrinking attention.
  • The content formats that are already adapting.
  • What’s changing.
  • Who is innovating “snackable” content.
  • Believe it or not: the morning show no station will ever program that audiences would love.

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Monday, June 16, 2025

AI Is Quietly Taking Over Music, Radio & Streaming — Faster Than Expected

  • When will AI significantly transform radio and the music industry.
  • What AI radio will look like in sales and programming.
  • You’ll never guess who’s being replaced first.
  • What radio, music and Spotify looks like by 2027 (and it may even be sooner).
  • Is AI-generated vocals that mimic famous artists on the table?
  • The ultimate DJ replacement that nobody sees coming.

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Friday, June 13, 2025

The CBSization of Audacy

  • Some 300 were fired and now they’re hiring, promoting and extending talent contracts – which is it?
  • How Audacy’s plan is the opposite of iHeart and Cumulus.
  • How they plan to get around the right-wing FCC chairman who vows to stop them in their tracks.
  • What they can sell to raise money.
  • Soros’ big advantage over other hedge fund owners.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Radio Math No Longer Works for Podcasting

Bankrupt radio groups like iHeart, Audacy, and Cumulus have leaned hard on podcasting to offset linear radio revenue declines but now, with spot ad revenue in freefall, and podcasting maturing (i.e., slower growth, higher competition, tighter margins), they’re cornered.

What’s at stake

  • The decline is structural, not cyclical driven by advertiser migration to programmatic digital, YouTube, influencer deals, and streaming platforms with better data and targeting.
  • But when you plug in podcasting’s growth and radio’s decline the math no longer works.
  • iHeart traditional radio revenue dropped 5.2% YOY in Q1 2024.
  • Audacy -- Local spot down 7%, national down 11% in same quarter.
  • Cumulus -- Declines in the high single digits, with little offset from podcasting.
  • Podcasting – That’s becoming a problem.

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Tuesday, June 10, 2025

The Real End Game for iHeart

iHeart Media’s narrative pushes “We’re becoming a lean, digital-first audio company” glossing over a harsher reality: the end game has changed, they are saddled with $5 billion of debt and managing a controlled decline while trying to squeeze enough cash out of digital to put into play one last (and hopefully) profitable move.

  • iHeart emerged from bankruptcy in 2019 and still carries over $5 billion in debt.
  • Servicing that debt (interest payments, not even principal) eats up a huge chunk of cash flow.
  • iHeartMedia spends roughly $370–380 million per year servicing interest on its $5 billion+ debt load — about 7–8% annually or roughly $1 million a day in interest payments.
  • These payments consume a big chunk of annual EBITDA (Q4 2024 EBITDA was $246 million alone).
  • With radio revenue declining and podcasting leveling off, they’re essentially running just to stay in place.
  • What’s the real end game?

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Monday, June 9, 2025

Saga’s Camouflage

Saga is trumpeting big gains from its so-called “Blended” digital with radio ad model but when you dig deeper, is it strategy innovation or just a late-stage scramble to catch up with radio five years ago?

  • Saga’s desperation to catch up may be due to their decline in revenue.
  • Friday, CEO Chris Forgy called an emergency “all hands” company-wide meeting that was unthinkable just a few years ago laying it all out in the open.

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Friday, June 6, 2025

New Catch in Nielsen’s 3-Minute Rule

Key Points

  • Average quarter hour metrics look better so why are advertisers refusing to pay rate defeating the easier quarter hour rules.
  • Ironically, non-commercial NPR is benefiting most.
  • Roy told-you-so: Following the iconic Westinghouse and CBS radio executive Roy Shapiro’s listening goals is the change stations need to make to take full advantage of the relaxed 3-minute Nielsen quarter hour.

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Tuesday, June 3, 2025

How Hedge Funds Are Gutting Radio — Again

Radio’s decline over the past 25 years wasn’t an accident – it was a business model.

  • Hedge funds and private equity that have hijacked iHeart, Cumulus, Audacy and most recently Alpha continue to extract value even while their companies decline.
  • How iHeart, Cumulus, Audacy and Alpha plan to continue getting rich at radio’s expense with names and numbers and their end game.

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