iHeartMedia’s Podcast Revenue Surges As Company Expands Into Video.

Podcasting continues to emerge as one of iHeartMedia’s most powerful growth engines, and CEO Bob Pittman says the company now sees video as opening an additional marketplace rather than simply shifting listeners and advertisers away from audio.

iHeart’s podcast revenue climbed 20.7% year-over-year during the second quarter to $162 million, up from $134 million a year ago. That puts the company’s podcast revenue at $309 million through the first half of 2026, up 23.5% from $250 million during the same period last year. The company expects that momentum to carry into the second half. For Q3, iHeartMedia is forecasting podcast revenue growth of approximately 20% as it remains what management says is the most profitable podcasting business.

Pittman told analysts that one advantage iHeartMedia has over other podcast companies is its ability to tap the sales and promotional infrastructure built around its radio stations. About half of the company’s Q2 podcast revenue was again generated by its local-market sales force.

“We built and continue to build our podcast audience by using our unparalleled audience reach in broadcast radio,” Pittman told analysts on an earnings call. “That provides an additional vector of growth for podcast revenue and sets us apart from our podcast competitors.”

Podcast growth is also helping reshape iHeartMedia’s earnings mix. The largest owner of radio in the U.S. says that, for the past six quarters, it has had greater earnings from its digital business, including podcasting, than from its radio business. “Even when we get the Multiplatform Group back to growth, we expect this trend to continue,” Pittman said.

Video Opens Another Door

Increasingly, iHeartMedia sees video as another way to extend that podcast growth. The company has been producing video versions of many of its podcasts and distributing them through iHeartRadio and other platforms, while striking deals that put the shows onto major streaming video services.

Pittman called video podcasts a “new and meaningful growth opportunity” for the company. He said the company has become the most successful video podcaster on Netflix. Pittman said the relationship also illustrates how video deals can evolve beyond simply putting cameras on existing podcasts. He says the decision to make “The Breakfast Club” a live daily Netflix show “was unexpected” when the companies first aligned last year. “But it’s how the relationship evolves as we find opportunities,” Pittman said.

Something similar is possible after iHeartMedia announced Monday that six of its podcasts are headed to Disney+ and Hulu beginning this week. “As we get in with them and they see how it’s performing, we will figure out how we craft the right relationship with them,” Pittman said. He also confirmed iHeartMedia is having discussions with other companies carrying video podcasts, suggesting Netflix and Disney will not necessarily be the endpoint of its distribution expansion.

For all its growth, Pittman still sees video podcasts as an “additive” to the audio business, with estimates suggesting that fewer than 5% of podcast consumers are video-only. Research shows most people move between formats, sometimes primarily listening while occasionally looking at the screen when something visual happens. “We think the two work very well together,” Pittman said. He said the bigger opportunity is that video lets podcasting compete for audiences in places where podcasts historically did not.

“At first we said the story of podcasting is we’re filling up those spots where you can’t look at video,” Pittman said. “And now podcasting’s strong enough that it actually can compete with video, and that we can put it in that environment too.”

That creates a financial opportunity as well. Pittman pointed to premium video CPMs and said the cost of producing video versions of podcasts is relatively modest compared with traditional television production. “That not only helps audience, but it also helps revenue,” Pittman told investors.

For iHeartMedia, Pittman said, the expansion represents something bigger than moving an existing podcast audience from one screen or speaker to another.

“We think this is opening up a new marketplace,” he said. “It’s not a transformation marketplace at all.”