iHeartMedia Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 11, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Negative Sentiment: Consolidated revenue was $884 million, up 9.6% year‑over‑year, but Adjusted EBITDA was $93 million, slightly below guidance due to timing of non‑cash marketing expenses and March advertising softness related to macro/geo events.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management announced an additional $50 million of annualized cost savings beginning in H2 (on top of a prior $100M) and expects cash taxes to be effectively eliminated for 2026–2028, preserving roughly $150M–$200M of cash.
  • Positive Sentiment: The Digital Audio Group delivered strong growth with revenue up 18% to $327 million and podcast revenue of $147 million (up 26.9%), with podcasting margins accretive and the company positioning itself as the #1 podcast publisher and sales network.
  • Negative Sentiment: Multiplatform Group revenue rose 4.3% to $493 million but Adjusted EBITDA declined to $47 million from $70 million; management is focusing on programmatic, integrated sales, and bundling to return MPG to EBITDA growth and targets about $200 million of programmatic revenue in 2026.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Q1 free cash flow was negative $114 million and net debt was approximately $4.7 billion (net leverage ~6.9x), yet the company reaffirmed full‑year guidance of $800M Adjusted EBITDA and $200M free cash flow and expects net leverage in the mid‑5s by year‑end.
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Earnings Conference Call
iHeartMedia Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

As a reminder, this Conference Call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Andrey Hart, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Andrey Hart
Andrey Hart
SVP of Strategy, Investor Relations and Finance at iHeartMedia

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us for our Q12026 Earnings Call. Joining me for today's discussion are Bob Pittman, our Chairman and CEO, Rich Bressler, our President and COO, and Mike McGuinness, our CFO. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, management will take your questions. In addition to our press release, we have an earnings presentation available on our website that you can use to follow along with our remarks.

Andrey Hart
Andrey Hart
SVP of Strategy, Investor Relations and Finance at iHeartMedia

Please note that this call may include forward-looking statements regarding our financial performance and operating results. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results could differ from what is stated as a result of certain factors identified on today's call and in the company's SEC filings, including our recent 8-K filing. Additionally, during this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures.

Andrey Hart
Andrey Hart
SVP of Strategy, Investor Relations and Finance at iHeartMedia

Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release, earnings presentation, and our SEC filings, which are available in the investor relations section of our website. Now I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Thanks, Andrey, and good afternoon, everyone. In the first quarter, our consolidated revenue was $884 million, up 9.6% compared to the prior year quarter and in line with our guidance of up high single digits. Excluding the impact of political, our consolidated revenue was up 9.3%. We generated Adjusted EBITDA of $93 million in the first quarter, slightly below our previously provided guidance of approximately $100 million, compared to $105 million in the prior year.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

The timing of the non-cash marketing expenses that we discussed in the last few earnings calls drove the majority of our slight underperformance relative to our EBITDA guidance, as we recognized more of this non-cash expense in the period than previously anticipated due to timing of some of our partnership campaigns.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

This was also driven in part by our March advertising revenues coming in a little lower than anticipated, and we believe this correlated with advertiser and consumer uncertainty resulting from the impact of current macroeconomic issues. Before I go into the details of this quarter's results, today we're announcing a new cost reduction initiative that will generate an additional $50 million of annualized savings, which we will begin realizing in the 2H of the year.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, this is in addition to the $100 million of in-year 2026 savings that we have previously announced. As you know, we continually re-evaluate our organizational structure, flatten layers of management, and push the adoption of new technologies and tools, including AI, to improve our operating efficiency, and this latest announcement is further evidence of that commitment.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Also want to add, as a result of the implementation of changes to the tax code, we expect our cash taxes for 2026 to be effectively eliminated and for the next few years, as long as the current tax laws remain in effect. This will materially improve our free cash flow generation moving forward. Rich will speak to all of this in a bit more detail. Now I'd like to turn to our individual operating segments. The Digital Audio Group generated Q1 revenues of $327 million, up 18% versus prior year and slightly ahead of our previously provided guidance of up mid-teens.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Within the Digital Audio Group, our podcast revenue momentum continues and was $147 million for the quarter, up 26.9% compared to prior year of $116 million, above our guidance of up low 20s and approximately 50% of our podcasting revenue was generated by our local sales force. Our podcasting EBITDA margins remained accretive to our total company EBITDA margins, which we achieve by applying rigorous financial discipline.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

We believe we have the most profitable podcasting business in the United States. In fact, we're the number one podcast publisher as measured by both Podtrac and Triton. We're also the podcasting industry's number 1 podcast sales network. One more thing to note, a major key to our success in building our podcast business has been our broadcast radio assets.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

If Netflix is in essence TV on demand, then podcasting is radio on demand, and as the number one radio company in America, that gives us a great advantage. In the first quarter, digital ex-podcast revenue grew 11.6% compared to prior year. The Digital Audio Group generated Q1 Adjusted EBITDA of $87 million, flat to prior year. The Digital Audio Group's Adjusted EBITDA margins were 26.5%.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, Q1 margins are always the lowest of the year, and we expect to see DAG's full-year Adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-30s as they were for the full year 2025. Turning now to the Multiplatform Group, which includes our broadcast radio, networks, and events businesses.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Q1 revenue was $493 million, up 4.3% versus prior year and slightly below the midpoint of our guidance range of up mid-single digits. Excluding the impact of political advertising, Multiplatform Group revenue was up 3.9%. The Multiplatform Group's adjusted EBIT was $47 million compared to $70 million in the prior year.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Despite this quarter's Multiplatform Group Adjusted EBITDA performance, we remain confident we can return the Multiplatform Group to Adjusted EBITDA growth during this year. To reach that goal, in addition to our continuing efforts on cost, we're focused on four major drivers. Number one, Programmatic. We have built the ad tech infrastructure and systems to make our broadcast inventory available through programmatic buying platforms.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

These partnership agreements with Amazon DSP, Yahoo DSP, Google DV360, and others will enable our broadcast radio inventory to participate alongside our digital inventory in the same growing Programmatic TAM. Second, integrated sales. By positioning ourselves as a true marketing partner for our clients and agency partners, we focus on bringing all of our advertising assets to bear, including continuing to bundle broadcast radio with other platforms for the benefit of our advertising partners.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Third, increasing share of the broadcast radio TAM. In Q1, we outperformed the radio industry's revenue performance by 5.8 percentage points according to Miller Kaplan, and we expect this to continue given the unique scale of our audience, our ad tech platforms, and the fact that we have the largest sales force in audio. Fourth, our resilient radio audience.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

There are more broadcast radio listeners today than there were 20 years ago. One constant in advertising is that the revenue eventually follows consumer usage. We continue to see our partnerships with companies like Netflix and TikTok as validation of the unique power of our broadcast radio assets. We continue to premiere new music with our TikTok partnership with a broadcast radio.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Following on the tremendous success of our Bruno Mars album preview earlier this year, we have nationwide programming campaigns coming up to launch new music by Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter. If you're looking for further validation of the power of our broadcast radio assets and our radio personalities, out of all the video podcasts that appear on Netflix, in the first quarter, one podcast got over 40% of all their podcast views according to Samba TV. That's our own The Breakfast Club with Charlamagne.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Why? Because they talk about it on the radio every morning. One more way we're quantitatively proving the value of broadcast radio to advertisers and marketers. Before I turn it over to Rich, I want to give you our view on the current macro environment. Our internal corporate insights group does weekly updates on consumer sentiment to help our on-air talent and programmers stay in touch with the issues that are important to our listeners.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

This week, one of the studies showed that 61% of U.S. consumers say the economy is getting worse, and 31% list inflation or price of goods as their most important issue, which is the highest since 2022. We believe this has probably created some softness in what we feel is a reasonably healthy advertising marketplace. With that, I'll turn it over to Rich.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Thank you, Bob, and good afternoon. Our Q1 2026 consolidated revenue was in line with our guidance above high single digits and was up 9.6% compared to the prior year quarter. As Bob mentioned, we saw some softness in March that appeared to correlate with the start of the conflict in the Middle East.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Having said that, we still believe that 2026 will be a significant year in terms of Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow generation for iHeart. I want to repeat two key updates that Bob gave. The first is the update on our cost reduction work and our new savings initiative that will generate an additional $50 million of annual savings, which we will begin realizing in the 2H of the year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, this is in addition to the $100 million of in-year 2026 savings that we have previously announced. The second is an update to our cash taxes. As a result of changes to the tax code, we now expect to have minimal cash taxes over the next three years, assuming the current tax laws remain in effect. As we think about our free cash flow generation, this will preserve approximately $150 million-$200 million of cash from 2026 to 2028. Let me provide you with some additional detail on our advertising revenue performance in the first quarter. As a reminder, one of our strengths is our diversified advertising revenues.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

There is no advertising category that is greater than about 5% of our total advertising revenue and no individual advertiser that is about more than 2% of our total advertising revenue. In the first quarter, the largest category gainers in terms of absolute dollars were healthcare, financial services, computers, electronics and appliances, and political. The four categories that declined the most in terms of absolute dollars were entertainment, beauty and fitness, government, and telco.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

In the first quarter, our five largest advertising categories in terms of absolute dollars were healthcare, financial services, auto, and home building and improvement. Our consolidated direct operating expenses increased 5.3% for the quarter. This increase was primarily driven by higher variable content costs associated with the revenue growth of our Digital Audio Group. Our consolidated SG&A expenses increased 11.9% for the quarter.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

This increase was primarily driven by expenses related to our non-cash co-marketing partnerships, partially offset by a decrease in employee compensation costs. We generated a Q1 GAAP operating income of $1.5 million compared to an operating loss of $25 million in the prior year quarter.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

We generated Adjusted EBITDA of $93 million, slightly below our previously provided guidance of approximately $100 million and compared to $105 million in the prior year. As Bob mentioned, this performance below guidance was driven primarily by the timing of non-cash marketing expenses recognized earlier in the year than expected and some softness in the advertising marketplace in March as a result of uncertainty correlated with the conflict in the Middle East.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As we previously discussed, some of the investment in our proprietary audience database, which is the foundation of our broadcast Programmatic offerings, takes the form of co-marketing partnerships to drive engagement with the iHeartRadio digital services. We continue to view these marketing activities as critical for the success of our broadcast Programmatic initiative.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, this is all in support of our efforts to make our broadcast inventory as easy for our advertising partners to transact as our digital inventory. This is one of the important steps in returning the Multiplatform Group back to EBITDA growth. We will continue these partnerships in Q2, and they will start tapering off in the 2H of the year. As you know, all the revenue and expense associated with each partnership has net zero impact on Adjusted EBITDA over time.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, the majority of this revenue and expense impacts the Multiplatform Group segment. I think it's important to also tie this non-cash marketing activity to our focus on reducing costs and conserving cash. If you go back 10 years, this company spent approximately $100 million a year on cash marketing in support of driving listeners to our stations.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Since then, we have replaced most of this cash marketing expense with these non-cash marketing partnerships and have focused those marketing efforts on driving our broadcast programmatic initiatives in addition to radio listenership. Turning now to the performance of our operating segments. In the first quarter, the Digital Audio Group's revenue was $327 million, up 18% year-over-year and slightly ahead of our guidance of up mid-teens.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

The Digital Audio Group's Adjusted EBITDA was $87 million, flat to prior year, and our Q1 Adjusted EBITDA margins were 26.5% compared to 31.4% in the prior year. Within the Digital Audio Group, our podcasting revenue is $147 million, which grew 26.9% year-over-year and above the guidance we provided of up low 20s.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Our Q1 Digital ex-podcast revenue grew 11.6% year-over-year to $180 million. Turning now to the Multiplatform Group, revenue was $493 million, up 4.3% compared to prior year, slightly below the midpoint of our previously provided guidance range of up mid-single digits. Adjusted EBITDA was $47 million, down from $70 million in the prior year quarter.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Turning to the Audio Media Services Group, revenue was $67 million, up 12.2% year-over-year, driven primarily by the continued growth of its digital revenues. Excluding the impact of political revenue, the Audio Media Services Group revenues were up 13%. Adjusted EBITDA was $24 million, up 54.7% compared to the prior year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

In the first quarter, our free cash flow was negative $114 million, compared to a negative $81 million in the prior year quarter. This was driven by an increase in our interest expense. As a reminder, in Q1 2025, we recognized lower interest expense due to the acceleration of a portion of our interest payments into Q4 2024 related to our refinancing. This drove year-over-year increase in interest expense of approximately $40 million.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Adjusted for that shift, our free cash flow improved slightly compared to prior year. At quarter end, our net debt was approximately $4.7 billion. Our total liquidity was $495 million, and our cash balance was $135 million, which included $50 million borrowed under the ABL facility. Our quarter ending net debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio was 6.9 times.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

At the end of April, we drew down $75 million from our ABL, which now has an outstanding balance of $125 million. We fully expect to pay down that balance by the end of 2026 with our free cash flow generation. As a reminder, we typically have negative free cash flow in the first half of the year and then generate meaningful free cash flow in the 2H of the year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Remember, 80% of political advertising comes in the back half of the year and helps drive free cash flow. On May 1st, we repaid $51.2 million remaining balances of our 6.375% notes, as well as the term loan and incremental term loan, fully retiring those stub facilities. Let me now turn to our guidance for the Q2 and the full year within that context that Bob discussed regarding the current economic environment.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

For the Q2, we expect to generate Adjusted EBITDA between $140 million and $160 million. We expect our consolidated revenue to be up low single digits compared to prior year. We're still closing April, but it's pacing up low single digits year-over-year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Turning to the individual segments, we expect the Digital Audio Group's revenue to be up approximately 10% year-over-year, with podcasting revenue expected to grow in the low 20s and Digital ex-podcasting to be up low single digits. We expect the Multiplatform Group's revenues to be approximately flat compared to prior year. We expect the Audio and Media Services Group's revenue to be up low teens year-over-year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Turning to the full year, we are reaffirming our full year Adjusted EBITDA guidance of $800 million and our free cash flow guide of $200 million. Embedded in our Adjusted EBITDA guidance are the following. We expect to generate approximately $200 million of overall programmatic revenue in 2026, up approximately 50% from $135 million in 2025.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As a reminder, we expect our broadcast programmatic revenue trajectory to be similar to that of the growth we experienced in podcasting revenue. We expect podcasting revenue to continue its strong momentum. We expect this to be a robust midterm election year in terms of generating political revenue. As a reminder, the vast majority of our political revenue occurs in Q3 and Q4.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Our guidance also includes the benefit of our cost savings programs. Let me provide some of the inputs embedded in our free cash flow guidance. Interest expense will be approximately $440 million. As we discussed earlier, due to tax planning actions taken in response to changes to the tax code, we now expect to have minimal cash taxes this year and for the next few years, as long as the current tax laws are in effect.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

As I said before, this is a great outcome and will help us avoid approximately $150 million-$200 million of cash taxes over the next three years. Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $90 million. Cash restructuring expenses will be approximately $50 million. We expect our net leverage ratio at the end of 2026 to be in the mid-5s, which would be more than a full turn improvement year-over-year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Before we open the line for Q&A, I wanna remind you that our company does not comment on rumors or speculation. Now, we will turn it over to the operator to take your questions. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by the 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw any questions, press star 1 again. Our first question comes from Aaron Watts from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Aaron Watts
Aaron Watts
Managing Director, Media, Entertainment, Cable, & Satellite Fixed Income Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Hi, everyone. Thanks for having me on. A couple questions, if I may. First, you're affirming your full year guidance. Is the right way to think about that as being a balance between the macro headwinds that the whole industry is experiencing balanced against kind of the incremental cost savings you've introduced? On the political side, I know you refocused your efforts there. Can you give us your latest thoughts on how this year is shaping up for you relative to the last election, and how much political is baked into that full year guide you've given us?

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

You know, I think that's probably an accurate, assessment of where it is. I think we also obviously have the political revenue coming in. I think, you know, you read the same headlines we do and talk to the same people. I think everybody thinks it's gonna be a very big political spend year. As a reminder, most of that comes Q3, Q4.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Aaron, it's Rich. I would just add a couple things building off Bob said about confirming the full year guidance. I mean, obviously we're sitting here in May. Again, not Nostradamus. You all read the same things we do. We have a lot of moving pieces, and as a reminder, Q1 is by far the smallest quarter we have of the year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

That's nothing new. It always has been. Q2 and Q3 are about the same from a financial standpoint. Q4, just with the rest of the advertising industry, is our biggest quarter out there. And we expect this to be a strong, you know, nobody's gonna be able to figure out It'll be another strong political year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

We announced the last savings program today, which actually is in page seven of the investor deck. We tried, 'cause we know there's a lot of moving pieces, tried to do even a better job of laying it out and how it hits on the individual quarters. You take that all together, and as we sit here today, vested everything we see, that's what comprises reaffirming our $800 million EBITDA guidance.

Aaron Watts
Aaron Watts
Managing Director, Media, Entertainment, Cable, & Satellite Fixed Income Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Okay, great. Secondly, on your non-cash marketing, I believe I heard you say it came in a bit heavier than you anticipated this quarter, but that it would moderate as the year kind of progressed. Did I hear that correctly? Are you extracting from these efforts or are you getting from these efforts what you expected? Can you give us an update on how it's translating into kind of your ability to sell programmatically, especially your broadcast inventory?

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Well, maybe I'll just start, and Bob will chime in. Just, you know, a couple things. Yes on timing. You heard exactly correctly with its impact. Again, law of small numbers in Q1. Nothing changes in terms of the way to think about, you know, the full year. It just doesn't change anything. It's just a slight timing difference as I said earlier. When you think about from building up from a programmatic standpoint, we reiterated that we expect programmatic to be up 50% year-over-year.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

I think Bob noted in his remarks, and we've talked about that we are in, if you want in terms of measurement of that in addition to the dollars, we are look at the DSPs that we've talked about in terms of Yahoo, DV360, being in the from a broadcast standpoint, the Amazon DSP the 2H of this year, we said previously. We continue to be pleased about that, and it's continues to be an important part as we noted when we gave guidance of returning the Multiplatform Group back to EBITDA growth.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I think as you look at that, the whole programmatic, you know, we've said in the past that we expect the trajectory of the growth to be somewhat like podcasting. We, you know, anticipate some healthy growth moving ahead. Again, going to the point on non-cash marketing expense, anytime we can use non-cash instead of cash is a good thing. If you go back 10 years, this was a substantial cash expenditure for the company when we needed to attract users. Obviously, being able to do it this way has a very positive benefit for the company.

Mike McGuinness
Mike McGuinness
CFO at iHeartMedia

Yeah, I think, Aaron, I would just ask, this is Mike, in terms of the timing, we did say that, you know, we will continue this into Q2. We feel we'll have enough of a media bank, to drive those efforts, and then we'll taper down to the back half of the year. That's all embedded in the guidance, and obviously evens out over time.

Aaron Watts
Aaron Watts
Managing Director, Media, Entertainment, Cable, & Satellite Fixed Income Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Okay. Very helpful. If I could sneak one more in, and again, thank you for the time.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Sure.

Aaron Watts
Aaron Watts
Managing Director, Media, Entertainment, Cable, & Satellite Fixed Income Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Rich, it sounds like you attacked some of your stub maturities, post-quarter, and you have a series of debt maturities to address beginning in earnest in 2028. Can you remind us how you're thinking about that? Also, if you could just confirm your flexibility to address those maturities within the confines of your various covenant packages.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

First of all, we, yeah, we're gonna continue. You saw we reiterate our guidance for the generation of $200 million of free cash flow for this year. We also mentioned, and I wanna reiterate the importance of our tax planning and tax synergies that we expect to generate $150 million-$200 million over the next three years. A period of time on that. I think between, you know, the operations of the business, the generation of that free cash flow, we're very comfortable with our paying off from free cash flow, the upcoming stub maturities there. I'm sorry, what was the second question?

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I mean-

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Oh.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

And as you said-

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

That you-

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

In the frame-

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Yeah.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Within the framework of the debt documents. Yeah, the answer is within the framework of the debt document. We believe we will do that with free cash generation. We have the ability to do that within the debt documents. Great. Thank you again, guys.

Aaron Watts
Aaron Watts
Managing Director, Media, Entertainment, Cable, & Satellite Fixed Income Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Okay. Sure. Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Stephen Laszczyk from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Stephen Laszczyk
Stephen Laszczyk
VP at Goldman Sachs

Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions. Bob, Rich, maybe just to unpack advertising a bit more, would just be curious if you could dive into the ad market today. You know, what you're seeing in terms of ad categories? What's been, you know, more resilient, less resilient or more sensitive against this macro backdrop? Then I guess as you look into the Q2 and ultimately out to the full year for the guide, what's implied in terms of some of either recovery or still some sensitivity in the macro impacting top line in the guide? Thank you.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Hey, look, I think we've got a reasonably healthy ad market, especially considering all the macro factors at work. I will say I think we watch it closely. I gave you a little bit of our internal numbers, which we use to work with our on-air talent and our programmers so they understand the mood of America. I think when you see high gas prices and you see inflation, you're probably gonna have more of an impact on lower income groups. The bigger spenders, higher income appear to be, you know, not as affected by it.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

We watch it closely and, again, I don't think anybody's heading for the hills, but I do think we have to be cognizant of the fact that it has some moderating effect on the ad market.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

By the way, Stephen, just in terms of categories, I covered a number of areas in my remarks. Also, I'll just point everybody to slide 12 in the deck that was attached to the presentation, which kind of goes through the top category gains, decliners and in terms of total revenue. In terms of the rest of the year, and the advertising marketplace, you know, Bob covered that. I would just continue to point out, you know, with that aspect of uncertainty, you know, just the continued resiliency of the medium that we have. We expect that will play well as we go through the rest of this year and into the future.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Yeah. Also, just to add, you know, remember political does eat up, you know, a meaningful piece of the inventory, which, you know, has a positive effect on the entire marketplace.

Stephen Laszczyk
Stephen Laszczyk
VP at Goldman Sachs

Got it. That's very helpful. Maybe just one on the programmatic opportunity. You mentioned the $200 million targeted growth to 50%. Just curious if you could talk more about the drivers of programmatic this year. So far in the first months of the year, what's been executed against that opportunity? If we think about longer term unlocks on programmatic, if there's any pieces that still need to come together over the course of the next couple of quarters or years to unlock, you know, further revenue upside past $200 million. Thank you.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Well, I think you look at in terms of what's driving it has been our digital and podcasting strong with our broadcast radio beginning to come on. Obviously, we think the big growth driver in the long term will be broadcast radio getting into the digital TAM. Right now, unlike video, if you try and plan a digital audio campaign, you really have a hard time getting reach.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Oh, broadcast.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I'm sorry. Broadcast. You have a hard time getting reach without broadcast radio. We are, you know, very cognizant of that. I think that's the reason the DSPs are anxious to get us into their buying platform so that these campaigns can deliver the reach that they're accustomed to getting when they do a video campaign.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

You know, just by the way, just to come back, and Bob pointed this out because he talked about the future. You know, again, just Bob mentioned it, I think it's worth repeating. When we look at broadcast, you know, thinking about that, think about that similar to the podcasting revenue trajectory. We did about $550 million in podcasting revenue 2025. If you go back about five years before that, we did about $50 million overall. We're just trying to, you know, in terms of context of how to think about that.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

I would say also in addition to all the DSPs out there or as part of it, you know, everything we're all reading about what's happening with agentic AI and the relationships we'll have, not just with the DSPs, but direct with the advertising holding companies, is also gonna be a continued driver there. Again, all to the optimistic in terms of our thinking about our future there.

Stephen Laszczyk
Stephen Laszczyk
VP at Goldman Sachs

Great. Thank you both.

Operator

Our next question comes from Sebastiano Petti from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Sebastiano Petti
Sebastiano Petti
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Hi, thank you for taking the question. I guess, just thinking about the business portfolio over time and I guess how you're, how you're evaluating it. I mean, Bob, you talked about the importance, you know, one of the major success or one of the major drivers of the success in podcasting has been your broadcast radio assets. We're increasingly getting the question on whether or not do those two assets need to stick together long term or is there an opportunity for perhaps synergy, you know, value unlocked by some sort of separation? Is that something you guys have contemplated in the past or looking at going forward? Thank you.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Yeah, we haven't looked at it because we do think they go together well. Having said that, we're always open to maximizing the value of the company. For us, we have been, I think, pretty smart in how we've used broadcast radio, not only to build podcasting, but to build the iHeartRadio app, to build the iHeart brand name, to build the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the awards show, et cetera, et cetera.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

That is at the base. Why? We have this extraordinary reach, and we have very high engagement. I mean, I go back to look at what happened with Netflix. They put all these video podcasts on the air, and one of them got 40% of all the views. Which one? The Big Morning Radio Show, Charlemagne and The Breakfast Club, because they were talking about it on the radio.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

That kind of power allows us to propel and build a lot of the future of the company.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

You know, Sebastian, the other thing I might just point out, because you talked about the assets and all the assets we have just, you know, and Bob mentioned this, I think, in his remarks, is that, remember, you know, broadcast radio listening is at a high it's been in 10 years. It's in 20 years, it's high, it's been 10 years out there.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

If you think about the platform that Bob talked about with broadcast, in addition to the absolute performance of our Multiplatform Group, and by the way, just as a reminder, financially, 75%-80% of the incremental dollars of broadcast revenue dollars dollars drop to the bottom line. It's an incredible financial performing asset, great free cash flow generator. Bob touched upon Netflix and everything we're seeing out there with the Netflix deal.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Remember, that was born off of look at the impact we have and the reach we have, the attraction, whether it's Netflix, we, I don't think we've mentioned on this call, but you're well aware of the deal we did with TikTok, which affects not just influencers and podcasting, but also, our broadcast radio assets.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

We've said one or two times in this call about the importance of all the DSPs and being in the Amazon DSP for broadcast the 2H of the year. I think you've got to think about all these assets working together. Finally, as you think about the revenue side, as a reminder, we have 1,000 plus ad sales people that can sell anything, anywhere, anytime. That's a delivery strategy across the company. They're selling all of our assets.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Think about it, we have 1,000 plus people also selling podcasts, both nationally and locally on a daily basis. I think we touched upon, you know, it's great that almost half of our podcasting revenue now is originated locally. I think you got to think about it as all the assets working together. It's hard to pick out any one piece.

Sebastiano Petti
Sebastiano Petti
Executive Director at JPMorgan

If I could quickly follow up there, you talked about the Netflix deal. Just a reminder, is that now at full run rate as we think about the revenue contribution to the digital business? Or is there some, like, stubbed or, you know, partial quarter? As we think about incremental opportunity from Netflix, you know, is that a, you know, any contextualizing, you don't need to get into the fixed versus variable, but is it, you know, at scale and as we kind of think about going forward?

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I think the way to think about it, let's take it up a level. There's a new thing called video podcast, which appear to be incremental to audio podcast. It's not the same usage case. It's another time in which people are doing it, and now we're able to get the video podcast in there. It opens up a new revenue stream for this business called podcasting.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Netflix, I think, is the first example of that. Are there others that would like to carry our video podcasting? By the way, the iHeartRadio app, we are now carrying, just beginning to roll it out this month, beginning to carry video versions of audio podcasts too. You're seeing the same with Spotify and Apple. Certainly YouTube, you know, has been doing it.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I think that's the big concept here, is that you found yet another market that we can play in.

Sebastiano Petti
Sebastiano Petti
Executive Director at JPMorgan

Thank you.

Operator

Our last question comes from Patrick Sholl from Barrington Research. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Patrick Sholl
Patrick Sholl
Research Analyst at Barrington Research

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Just following up on programmatic and the flow through of incremental revenue to for the MPG group. I was just wondering if there was, like, any sort of difference between the programmatic sales efforts and your traditional ad sales efforts on that flow through to EBITDA.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

You know what you mean in terms of the margin on the business? Is that the question?

Patrick Sholl
Patrick Sholl
Research Analyst at Barrington Research

Yeah. Yeah.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

You know, I think it's relatively the same.

Patrick Sholl
Patrick Sholl
Research Analyst at Barrington Research

Yeah. Okay. Then just on, like, just the macro uncertainty, any extent to which, you know, that's helping, you know, contribute to, you know, people buying advertising later and maybe, you know, switching their buys from, you know, direct to programmatic?

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

I don't think it will do. I don't think it's that. I think you're finding some players are saying, "Look, we're sort of automating our process." Some advertisers are buying directly using programmatic. You know, agencies are using it a lot. I think it's, you know, they've got one platform there. They're able to put almost all the players on one platform, make it easy to buy, easy to coordinate. I think that's the basic appeal of it. By the way, they need a whole lot fewer people to do it. It happens faster. I think it's more of that trend than anything that has to do with the macroeconomics in the world.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Remember, I might just add one last piece, was, you know, agentic programmatic, you know, and putting our broadcast inventory to be bought and sold as easy as digital. You know, you know, this is the way the advertising industry is transacting. Just to be clear, you know, we're talking about, you know, ourselves and again, as a reminder on digital, we're already in all the programmatic buying systems. You know, and programmatic and agentic, it's a little bit different but along the same lines. This has been going on for some period of time, not in broadcast, but in the video world. This is not a new way to transact.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

It's the way the advertise industry has been transacting, and we're just making sure with all of our assets, starting with uniqueness of broadcast and digital's already there, that we meet the industry, the agencies, our advertisers, the way they want to do business.

Patrick Sholl
Patrick Sholl
Research Analyst at Barrington Research

Okay. Thank you.

Bob Pittman
Bob Pittman
Chairman and CEO at iHeartMedia

Great.

Rich Bressler
Rich Bressler
President and COO at iHeartMedia

Great. Well, if there are no other questions, we really all appreciate everybody taking the time. Thank you for the interest in the iHeart story. Bob, myself, Mike, Andrey are always available for follow-ups and to answer any questions.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Andrey Hart
      Andrey Hart
      SVP of Strategy, Investor Relations and Finance
    • Bob Pittman
      Bob Pittman
      Chairman and CEO
    • Mike McGuinness
      Mike McGuinness
      CFO
    • Rich Bressler
      Rich Bressler
      President and COO
Analysts
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