If you’re tempted to see iHeartMedia as a recovering, mega-platform of audio options for future advertisers, you may want to reconsider.
iHeart is a fabulous radio platform in spite of their CEOs pivot to audio – in fact, they grew their radio revenue from Q1 2019 to Q1 2022 ($765 million to $843 million). It’s a solid performance and clearly superior to peers.
But iHeart is in play in a different way than some of their competitors.
They would be flying high if it were not for their unacceptable $6 billion in debt so like it or not, iHeart is a takeover candidate.
John Malone’s Liberty tried to steal the company and now UK-based Global Media is publicly courting iHeart with the iHeart lenders still clearly in control.
Global’s investment plans are as important as iHeart’s plan to handle any takeover on their terms – whether they succeed or not, time will tell but now we at least know what those terms are.
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