iHeart Leans Into Tech And Local Sales To Power Radio’s Next Growth Cycle.

iHeartMedia executives said Monday their radio business is stabilizing and showing early signs of a return to growth, with several initiatives underway to make broadcast as easy to buy as digital. CEO Bob Pittman said the largest advertisers and advertising agency groups have traditionally been a good indicator of what's to come, and iHeart continues to see business gaining traction with most of the top 50 advertisers as well as the largest ad agencies.

“We’re seeing important signs of improvement in our broadcast business,” Pittman told analysts on an earnings call. “These results give us confidence that our plan to return the Multiplatform Group to revenue growth is on the right track.”

What is giving Pittman further confidence that they are heading back to growth mode is the fact that audiences are as large as they ever have been. “We have more broadcast radio listeners today than we had 10 years ago, and even 20 years ago,” Pittman explained. “Our challenge is one of monetization.”

To address that, iHeart is working to make broadcast inventory transact like digital, which he believes will unlock a significant monetization opportunity. The initiative centers on using the company’s proprietary audience database to link traditional radio impressions with digital identity data and take advantage of growing sales via programmatic ad platforms.

The announcement last week of a programmatic partnership with Amazon DSP is part of that effort, with broadcast radio inventory being made available in 2026. Earlier this year, iHeart’s radio inventory began to be available in the Yahoo DSP and Google Display & Video 360 exchanges. Pittman said the moves are a step toward making broadcast “look like digital inventory” and help to close the gap between broadcast radio’s audience strength and its share of ad dollars. “It's a structural issue, and we've invested heavily in fixing that,” he said.

In the meantime, the company’s Multiplatform Group — which includes its broadcast stations, networks, and events — saw revenue decline 4.6% from a year ago in Q3. Categories like healthcare, telecom, professional services all posted gains. Even though there was some political spending, the category had the biggest decline. Without it, Multiplatform revenue would have been down 2.5% in the quarter.

“Spending is holding up, and discussions with advertisers are positive,” Pittman said. “No one knows what the impact of government shutdown is, but right now, we're not feeling anything.” He noted that several studies continue to point to the effectiveness of radio, and that is catching on among ad buyer leading to what he sees as a “renaissance” for the business among many marketers.

Podcasts Ad Sales Go Local

Local radio sales teams are also increasingly powering growth in iHeart’s podcast business — a development executives see as key to uniting the company’s traditional and digital audio platforms under a single monetization strategy.

“Approximately 50% of our podcasting revenue is generated by our local sales force, up from about 11% in Q3 2020,” said Pittman. “It demonstrates the unique advantage of having what we believe is the largest local sales force in media.” He said the next stage will link those local podcast sales to iHeart’s growing programmatic channels.

By moving podcast ad inventory through its established radio sales network, iHeart is also making it easier for regional and local advertisers to enter the medium. That integration of local sales muscle with iHeart’s digital infrastructure is paying off. The company’s podcasting revenue climbed 22.5% from a year ago, to $140 million in Q3, helping drive a 13.5% gain for its overall Digital Audio Group.

Political will still be a factor in Q4 as the company anticipates total revenue to be down low-single digits—although it would be up by mid-single digits if not for that overhang. The impact will be biggest on the Multiplatform Group, with digital and podcast revenue both forecast to be up double-digits.

Looking ahead to 2026, President/COO/CFO Rich Bressler said both cyclical and structural factors offer reasons to be optimistic. “We expect it to be a strong revenue cycle on the political front,” he told analysts. Bressler also pointed to another $50 million in expected cost savings, most of which will benefit Multiplatform Group earnings.

Bressler said the coming year is also expected to see another 20,000 events across the iHeart portfolio, saying it remains an important part of the revenue and marketing mix. That point was reinforced with an announcement yesterday of an alliance with TikTok that will include a series of live event integrations.