iHeartMedia's podcast revenue rose 24% in the third quarter as broadcast radio revenue fell 4.5%

iHeartMedia said on November 9, 2026, that its podcast revenue rose 24.4% to $173.7 million in the third quarter, while revenue from broadcast radio, still its biggest revenue stream, fell 4.5% to $407.8 million. The company, which runs more than 860 broadcast stations and calls itself the No. 1 podcast publisher by downloads, unique listeners, revenue and earnings, said it expects to begin reporting podcasting as a separate segment in 2027.

Total revenue rose 3.3% to $1.03 billion, helped by advertising around the midterm elections. Political revenue was $29.7 million, against $5.5 million a year earlier; without it, revenue rose 0.9%. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP profit measure, fell to $170 million from $205 million. Operating income was $73 million, against an operating loss of $116 million a year earlier, and the net loss narrowed to $8.2 million from $65.8 million.

Radio down, podcasts up

The company blames the radio decline on lower spot advertising, which it links to advertisers' uncertainty about consumer spending, partly offset by higher non-cash trade and barter revenue and political revenue. Its Networks business, which includes Premiere Networks, fell 12.0%. Podcast revenue now equals about 43% of broadcast radio revenue, up from about 33% a year earlier (our calculation).

Chief executive Bob Pittman tied the outlook for radio to the spread of programmatic ad buying and the rollout of the company's AudioGraph platform, which he said has “the potential to meaningfully improve the performance of our broadcast radio business.” iHeartMedia expects about $400 million of total programmatic revenue in 2027, including about $100 million of additional broadcast radio programmatic revenue, after the roughly $200 million it expects for 2026. President Rich Bressler said a separate podcast segment would “make it easier to fully value all four of our segments and our entire company.”

The non-cash part of the growth

Since the third quarter of 2025, iHeartMedia has entered into what it calls non-cash strategic marketing initiatives, meant to expand its digital audience and support its broadcast radio programmatic sales. They show up as trade and barter, which the company defines as exchanging advertising spots for merchandise, services, other advertising or other assets. Trade and barter revenue was $142.4 million in the quarter, up from $131.5 million, while trade and barter expenses rose to $117.1 million from $68.2 million; the company attributes the increases to those initiatives. The company says the 6.4% rise in digital revenue excluding podcasts came mainly from non-cash trade and barter revenue from those initiatives, along with higher demand for digital advertising.

It says it cut back on new initiatives in the third quarter and expects to keep doing so for the rest of 2026, but expenses from agreements already signed will continue. Its fourth-quarter guidance of $135 million to $185 million in adjusted EBITDA includes about $100 million of net negative impact from non-cash marketing. It expects fourth-quarter revenue to rise by a mid-single-digit percentage.

The value of radio licenses is under pressure too. In its annual test as of July 1, iHeartMedia took a $16.0 million non-cash impairment on its FCC licenses, which it attributes mainly to recent radio station sales at values below historical levels. It had $5.02 billion of total debt at September 30. Related: our report on Pandora and SiriusXM's third quarter.