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Largest US Radio Company iHeartMedia Files For Bankruptcy (reuters.com)
The largest U.S. radio station owner, iHeartMedia, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as it "struggles with $20 billion in debt and falling revenue at its 858 radio stations," reports Reuters. The company has reportedly reached an agreement with holders of more than $10 billion of its outstanding debt for a balance sheet restructuring, which will reduce its debt by more than $10 billion. From the report: Cash on hand and cash generated from ongoing operations will be sufficient to fund the business during the bankruptcy process, said iHeartMedia, which owns Z100 in New York and Real 103.5 KISS FM in Chicago. The filing comes after John Malone's Liberty Media Corp proposed on Feb. 26 a deal to buy a 40 percent stake in a restructured iHeartMedia for $1.16 billion, uniting the company with Liberty's Sirius XM Holdings Inc satellite radio service. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc, a subsidiary of iHeartMedia, and its units did not commence Chapter 11 proceedings. The company had 14,300 employees at the end of 2016, according to its most recent annual report.
Very few people actually listen to broadcast radio anymore. Only the people with commutes whose CD player doesn't work, or doesn't have any type of auxiliary input. Home listening? Nope.
Broadcast TV is next.
This is bad.
ClearChannel is one of the reasons people don't want to listen to terrestrial radio anymore. They have a near monopoly in so many regions, and instantly make radio bland and corporate. I'm a bit surprised their attempts at payola with their awards and festivals haven't saved them.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I have a love hate relationship with iheart. I love the streaming service, but that what they did the broadcast radio. EVERY station playing the same thing. I can hear 8 country stations on my drive in 6 are iheart and have the same bobby bones programs running. I listen to radio for music not some morning DJ blabbing out his crappy love life. SHut up and play the music.
Good riddance. Maybe this will mean this horrible conglomerate will be broken up into locally run and maintained radio stations.
this is one of the worst Radio monopolies in America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Good people go to bed earlier.
I wonder what kind of impact they had on this with their licensing requirements?
I am just shaking my head. They own 858 stations and have $20,000,000,000 in debt?
Holy. Shit.
That's more than $23,000,000 per station. In debt. Radio stations do not cost $23,000,000.
I cannot figure out how they've managed to run up $20,000,000,000 in debt. That takes a special kind of talent.
And, I mean "special" as in "special ed".
Do you have ESP?
Toys R Us went bankrupt, they had only $5B debt but plenty of stock and store property and we're still selling items. How does any radio corporation get to the point that they are $20B in debt, they basically own nothing of any real worth. Even the stations themselves are small and limited tech. iTunes has been out for years. Napster. Writing has been on the wall for years. Who was loaning or lending this company money? At $10B or $15B in debt people didn't stop to think, hmm, may even we should cut them off? $20B is what it takes. Insane.
I seem to recall that radio stations were already failing left and right before the Internet was a thing. It’s hardly surprising that a large corporation whose main business model is the purchase and consolidation of cash-strapped radio stations would in turn fail at some point. It’s basically the old “we sell everything at a loss, but make it up in volume” model.
#DeleteChrome
Just like Toys 'R' Us was bought out by KKR and Bain in 2005, ClearChannel was bought by Bain and Thomas H Lee in an LBO in 2008. In both cases the company was saddled with more debt than they could pay off and had to file for Chapter 11.
DMCA - Chilling free speech since 1998.
iHeartRadio purchased all of the local independent radio stations in the Seattle area. Each of these stations at one point had their own unique niche. Now they're just generic top-10 playlist genre stations. There is no longer diversity within the market.
Also, iHeartRadio and Clear Channel are that closely related? I didn't even realize. Clear Channel is one of the most hated companies locally. There was a 20-year dispute between the city of Tacoma and Clear Channel over their lack of maintenance of their billboards around the city, which the city listed as a blight. http://billboardinsider.com/8-...
Both of these companies have been terrible to the Pacific Northwest and need removed.
http://www.expressnews.com/bus...
> iHeartMedia financial troubles embedded in 2008 leveraged buyout ....
Their recent telephone conversation, though, focused on the news that the company, with different owners and now called iHeartMedia Inc., was conducting pre-bankruptcy talks with lenders and bondholders after declaring that the company by February may not be able to meet some of its maturing $20.4 billion in debt.
The company’s daunting repayment schedule, stemming from the 2008 leverage buyout by two Boston-based private equity firms, makes iHeartMedia one of the country’s largest corporate debt dilemmas. ....
Had IHeartMedia kept the same programming that stations had before, or provided stations with some autonomy, things would have been completely different. People would be exposed to new bands and songs, the radio station would be a core pillar of the community, DJs could rally people for worthy causes, and musicians would have a place to get their hot tracks played.
However, this didn't happen. They took the quick buck route and destroyed their future. This worked well for a few years, but it killed radio as a whole as a viable medium. People have moved on to social networks and streaming sites. Only talk radio remains.
I pay for it because I still listen to Howard Stern (when he's not on vacation or working his 3 day "flexible" schedule). I also don't mind the live DJs that the stations have. They say a few words and maybe news about upcoming concerts and that's it. Plus they play specials and have guests do their own playlists. I've heard a lot of good music that way. I also don't have to worry about cell coverage or docking my phone and loading an app.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
This is why it's baffling that they are so much in debt.
iHeartMedia is basically a advertisement platform that just happens to play music and talk shows once in awhile. Most of their "studio's" are empty since most of their stations are run off of nationwide feeds. Everything they broadcast is tied to advertising, IE (product) digital studios, (product) Sportdesk, (product) news center (prouduct) weather center, (product) traffic report, then to top if all off each broadcast is brought to you by (product). Hell, even the stations are used to prop up their iHeartRadio app since they can use their stations to cut steaming fees.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
a few weeks ago when I heard a song on the radio I liked (One Night Only by the Struts). I overheard it at a Sonic Drive in. I promptly googled some of the lyrics and listened to the song on Youtube.
Meanwhile Radio is chock full of stuff like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. I don't need that in my head.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That left just talk radio. Talk radio's biggest money maker was Rush Limbaugh, but they paid him so much, the company did not net anything.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
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Yes.. corporations, specifically Clear Channel/iHeart killed terrestrial radio.
On today's corporate radio, controlled by computers from a central location in New York, with no local programming, no local DJs, ever playing anything even remotely interesting or controversial? You never hear protest music. Bob Dylan or Woody Guthrie would never get airplay now... hell, Bruce Springsteen is considered "controversial" by iHeart and if he wasn't a big star, they wouldn't play him at all. Rage Against the Machine was the last great protest band to get any major airplay. Corporate radio is not interested in making people think -- only making people become better consumers.
Radio can come back if the airwaves are turned over to independent locals who put local artists in rotation and cover issues of interest to people, and not big corporations.
For the most part I have been listening to Public Radio, and my local Public Radio station had just recently did a 2 Million dollar fund drive in 2 days. I think it is because our habits are moving from listening to music, which is widely available on the internet. To listening to news, while widely available on the internet too, but more difficult to get local news, and obtain it passively by listening to it, while driving, or doing other activities.
I also find news from NPR and the BBC to be more reputable and focused on news and facts then on commentary.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
People are looking for better choice in content and streaming provides that. I noticed even some new cars are forgoing the XMSirius systems in favor of streaming access head units. Many because that's where music content is going. FM radio is elevator music and not in a good way. Canned playlists, too many ads and lousy DJ's that annoy in between few tracks are losing listeners by the truckload. I grew up on Fm radio, but even myself in my 50's rarely turn on a radio station.
I don't know where I came across this link. It may even have been SlashDot.
http://radio.garden/
A Google Earth type globe with radio stations lit up as little green dots, zoom in, select radio station, and play it.
Seems like a ton of Canadian radio stations have jumped on this bandwagon as well. The app is horrible, and it's nearly impossible to find the "recently played" list online anymore. The older, non-unified system worked way better. Sure it wasn't as easy to search for things but the streams were far easier to access, as were the playlists.
Hopefully the employees are taken care of, not starting at the top. ... then my local stations were turned into utter crap. The worst of those changes for my goto station hands down was Bobby Bones.
I had hopes for the concept of the streaming app, listen to your local stations anywhere, great way to bring broadcast radio into the current age of tech
One less preinstall bullshit app on the Windows 10 start menu. Yay! Now if only King would go out of business.
So.. due to technical difficulties involving a cassette adapter, I have listened to some FM radio in the last few months. For various reasons I chose my local Cle-- oops, I mean, iHeartRadio station (classic rock genre) basically because as bland as it is, it's still the best radio music available (for my tastes) in this area, and good enough for commuting.
One thing I noticed is that a lot of the ads are for themselves. "Deadheads" as we call it in the print business. (Yes, I work for a newspaper. And I'm still not starving in the gutter yet, though with each year I get a little closer.)
My favorite -- no, let's rephrase that -- the funniest ad is for their app. With their app, you can listen to any of the iHeartRadio stations in the country! Oooh! Ahh!
I speculate that such an app could be made very efficient, thanks to dictionary compression. All you need to do, is have the App include a few AC/DC, Boston, Cream, Deep Purple .. ZZ-Top, etc songs, probably less than a hundred total, and then the convenient any-US-station "streaming" could just be transmission of the song ID, key to the audio data which the app would already have in its local storage.
Second funniest ad was that they want people to watch some music awards show. Then they rattle off a list of supposedly-music-related names that nobody who listens to classic roc has ever heard of. I realize iHeartRadio probably has a radio station in my area for every music genre, and these musicians are probably one of those genres, but if there's any humans working at the classic rock radio station, they must be cringing every time corporate makes them play that ad, knowing that it's driving the classic rock listeners away.
And then when you get to the ads that aren't for themselves, it's pretty bottom of the barrel. It's so nice to know that someone is always waiting and ready to sell me some male enhancement pills. Or debt settlement services.
What a cheesy radio station. There is no way these people don't know that everyone is laughing at them a little, and hell yes, they know the only reason anyone is listening, is that those people's cassette adapters must be broken too.
(I really just need to get a new receiver in my car, with built-in bluetooth. Fucking cassette adapters! I hate them!!)
(If you haven't checked out iHeartRadio lately, you might wanna, just for a reminder of how bad things are for people who don't try/care. It reminds me of the shocking experience of watching TV at a hotel, where it's totally full of ads every few minutes instead of the ads having already been removed by the pirate release groups.)
So no Stanley Jordan, The âDead, Little Feat, or that band from the college down the street?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sadly, I think this will likely result in even _more_ consolidation in the terrestrial radio market.
That and probably a bunch of smaller market or fully saturated markets transmitters shutting down.
Again, less voices, less venue.
I hope this gives rise to decent radio stations again. I've tried over the years to listen to radio, but it's just a couple of songs in between commercials. Maybe we'll see a radio revival where you can hear something other than corporate prescribed music.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
>
> I don't want to have to rely on Internet infrastructure for music and news.
>
OK. Then support a radio network that is fiscally responsible. NPR is in the midst of their Spring fund drive and they will not turn you away.
For anyone looking for a list of radio stations owned by iHeartMedia, you can find it on their website: list of stations. They even have it broken down so you can search by City, State, and Genre.
Anyone know if Sinclair plans on furthering their efforts towards a media monopoly?
Ok this is how these companys go bust.
Bain partners with someone promising them quick cash.
They then get a hugely over rated overvaluation of said corporation.
The get a loan for way more then the asking price or true worth, but only slightly less then the valuation.
They pay a good chunk of change on the points to make the loan people happy.
They buy said corporation and split the rest of the loan money with their partners.
The loan people then sell the loan to any sucker they can find as fast as they can.
Then bain and partners run said corporation in to the ground by raiding every dime they can out of it.
Then go for bankruptcy screwing the people that bought the loan, and the poor people that worked for the corporation.
What Bain does should be outlawed, but since they also own a lot of politicians it never will be.
Tetalon
The music you listen to on radio stations, it is...PRE-RECORDED!!!
Oh, you thought your local stations had the artists in the building performing recorded perfect versions of their material?
CC is why I quite listening to radio more than 20 years ago.
As someone who has been driven off of commercial radio by Clearchannel/IHeartRadio all I can say is "about damn time". They took on a ton of debt to buy out all of the local stations and convert them to bland corporate garbage and it's finally coming back to bite them in the ass. I hope the go Chapter 13 and local buyers have to step in to restore the radio stations. I know that will never happen in the real world but I can dream. Clearchannel killed radio.
I read the internet for the articles.
Several months ago I posted no-one is listening to radio anymore and it was a dying service. I was met with some very not nice people comments on this mostly telling me I didn't know what I was talking about. My comments even received a lot of negative feedback. I did not flame anyone I was just saying it was dead and now we find that the biggest radio company is bankrupt. Ok, here is the proof for all the people that told me I did not know what I was talking about.
Not the lack of interesting content.
Not the lack of local interest material.
Not the excessive commercials.
Fucking gayest name evah, that's why.
Debt restructuring bankruptcy isn't enough punishment to ClearChannel for the atrocities they've committed against radio. Radio used to be fun, interesting, and varied only ten years ago. These monsters have gobbled it all up, homogenized it, and destroyed the possibility of being exposed to anything other than the blandest corporate pop whargarbl.
In the words of Hajj the Begger: May their taxes increase!