iHeartMedia to Report Podcasting as Its Own Segment in 2027 After Q3 Podcast Revenue Rises 24%

iHeartMedia said it will report podcasting as a standalone financial segment starting in 2027 after third-quarter podcast revenue rose 24.4% to $173.7 million. The growth came in a quarter when weaker broadcast radio results left overall revenue and adjusted EBITDA below the company's guidance.

Nov 10, 2026 - 14:15

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iHeartMedia plans to report its podcasting business as a separate financial segment beginning in 2027, the company said on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, as it disclosed third-quarter podcast revenue of $173.7 million, up 24.4% from a year earlier. The podcast gains arrived in a quarter in which the company's overall revenue and adjusted EBITDA fell short of its own guidance because of weakness in broadcast radio, according to the company's earnings release and remarks on its conference call.

Podcasting has been reported inside iHeartMedia's Digital Audio Group, which also includes streaming and other digital revenue. Separating it will leave the company with four reporting segments in 2027, Radio Ink reported.

Podcast revenue tops the company's forecast

Third-quarter podcast revenue compared with $139.7 million in the same period of 2025, according to the release, and beat management's forecast for growth of approximately 20%, Podcast News Daily reported. Executives rounded the quarterly figure to $174 million on the call. Through the first nine months of 2026, podcast revenue totaled $483 million, up 23.8% from a year earlier, the company said.

Podcasting accounted for 17% of iHeartMedia's total third-quarter revenue, Radio Ink reported. Revenue in the Digital Audio Group rose 13.8% to $388.7 million, while digital revenue excluding podcasting rose 6.4% to $215 million, Inside Radio reported. The segment's adjusted EBITDA fell 2.3% to $127.4 million, and its margin narrowed to 32.8% from 38.1%. The company said segment operating expenses rose mainly because of higher variable content costs, including podcast profit share and third-party digital costs, as well as higher non-cash trade and barter expense.

Why the company is breaking out podcasts

"While this quarter was negatively impacted by a number of factors, we believe many of our revenue challenges are addressable – and beginning in 2027, we expect to establish podcasting as a separate reporting segment, which will provide greater insight into its financial performance and make it easier to fully value all four of our segments and our entire company," president and chief operating officer Rich Bressler said in the release.

Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman told analysts that "three of our expected four future segments are strong growth businesses," according to Radio Ink. Asked on the call whether investors should expect changes to the margin profile of the standalone business, management did not give additional figures, saying it was "the right time to break that out and provide insight" and that "there will be more to come on that," according to a transcript published by The Motley Fool.

Advertisers, local sales and pricing

Pittman said podcasting "continues to be the strongest growth component for the company, and the overall podcast industry growth remains strong as well." He told analysts that podcasting is what advertisers want to talk about most in many conversations, and that demand has translated into selling more inventory, higher CPMs, or advertising rates per thousand impressions, and an expanding roster of shows, according to the transcript.

Bressler said more than 50% of iHeartMedia's podcast revenue now originates locally rather than nationally. The company's investor presentation showed local sales accounted for 11% of podcast revenue in the third quarter of 2020, when quarterly podcast revenue was about $23 million, Podcast News Daily reported. Pittman also said iHeartMedia remains the No. 1 podcast publisher in the United States by audience, as reported by both Podtrac and Triton.

Video podcasts on streaming services

Pittman described video podcasting as "an entirely new market" for the company's podcasts. He said iHeartMedia's video podcast content is distributed on Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Disney+ and Hulu, as well as the company's iHeartRadio app. When Netflix licensed a group of podcasts, Pittman said, The Breakfast Club accounted for 40% of all the video views, and Netflix later turned it into a live daily show.

"We think we are just beginning to see the birth of this," Pittman said, adding that the company has "high expectations" for the format. When it reported second-quarter results in August, iHeartMedia said podcast revenue had risen 20.7% to $162 million, and it announced that six of its podcasts were headed to Disney+ and Hulu, Inside Radio reported.

Radio weakness weighs on overall results

Consolidated third-quarter revenue rose 3.3% to $1.03 billion, below the company's guidance for growth in the mid-single digits; excluding political advertising, revenue rose 0.9%. Adjusted EBITDA was $170 million, below the previously provided range of $180 million to $220 million. GAAP operating income was $73 million, compared with an operating loss of $116 million a year earlier, and the net loss narrowed to $8.2 million from $65.8 million, Radio Online reported.

Revenue in the Multiplatform Group, which includes broadcast radio, networks and events, fell 4.9% to $562.4 million. Broadcast radio revenue declined 4.5% to $407.8 million and networks revenue fell 12% to $100.6 million, according to Inside Radio. Pittman attributed the shortfall to four factors: less political advertising on radio than expected, as local television broadcasters added inventory and kept more campaign spending; larger brands delaying budgets until after the election; core radio buying moving to programmatic platforms faster than expected; and a more challenging economic environment.

For the fourth quarter, iHeartMedia said it expects podcast revenue to rise approximately 20%, Digital Audio Group revenue to increase by a mid-teens percentage and consolidated revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage. It forecast fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA of $135 million to $185 million, including an approximately $100 million net negative impact from non-cash marketing, and full-year adjusted EBITDA of $550 million to $600 million with free cash flow of about $50 million.

iHeartMedia shares fell 66.1% in midday trading on Tuesday to $0.60, extending a selloff that began after hours on Monday, Investing.com reported.