Radio business held back by a sluggish advertising market looks set to improve in 2024. “As we look ahead, we see 2024 as a turnaround year and expect a return to growth mode,” iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman he said during the company's earnings call on Thursday (Feb. 29) for the fourth quarter of 2023.
iHeartMedia expects its first-quarter revenue to be flat, down 2% compared to the year-ago period. That would be an improvement from a 5.2% decline in revenue to $1.07 billion in the fourth quarter. iHeartMedia actually beat its previous revenue guidance by a high single-digit drop. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $208 million fell 34% from the prior period, but fell within the guidance range of $205 million to $215 million.
Wall Street cheered the news. Shares of iHeartMedia jumped as much as 33.9% to $3.04 on Thursday morning before retreating to a still impressive $2.75, up 21.1%, by early afternoon.
Full-year revenue of $3.75 billion was down 4% year over year. Revenue for the multi-platform group — which includes broadcast radio stations, live and virtual events and the company's national sales organization — fell 6.2 percent to $2.44 billion.
Podcasts were bright spots in both the fourth-quarter and full-year results. In the fourth quarter, a 16.6% increase in podcast revenue more than offset a 1.1% decline in all other digital revenue, driving the digital audio group's revenue up 5.5% to $317.7 million. For the full year, a 13.8% improvement in podcast revenue led to a 4.6% improvement in iHeartMedia's digital audio group as other digital audio revenue was flat.
iHeartMedia had the top U.S. podcast audience in December with 29.8 million listeners, well ahead of No. 2 Wondery with 18.4 million and No. 3 NPR with 18.2 million, according to Podtrac. COO and CFO Rich Bressler estimated iHeartMedia's share of the podcast market at 20%. “In terms of profitability, we're much more than that,” Bressler said during the earnings call.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/radio/iheartmedia-earnings-2023-recovery-year-1235619215/