Apple Music rival iHeartMedia files for bankruptcy protection

iHeartMedia — the operator of nearly 850 U.S. radio stations, as well as streaming and concert businesses — has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as it looks to cope with more than $20 billion in debt.

The media giant has "reached an agreement in principle" with the holders of some $10 billion of the debt, and the company's financial backers, according to an announcement. Despite going into bankruptcy, it expects to continue operating as usual, including upholding "commitments to its valued employees and other stakeholders."

Previously known as Clear Channel, iHeartMedia has suffered mostly because of the migration of ad revenues to Google and Facebook. Terrestrial radio has also deflated as a medium, given the growing ability for people to listen to podcasts, on-demand services like Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music, or their own media libraries.

iHeartMedia has further been accused of using generic and/or repetitive programming, and all but eliminating local DJs.

At this week's SXSW festival in Austin, Tex., Apple executive Eddy Cue revealed that Apple Music now has over 38 million subscribers worldwide.

11 Comments

tokyojimu 531 comments · 17 Years

About 6 years ago

Those huge leveraged buyouts never seem to work out well. Another example this week: Toys ‘R’ Us.

bdkennedy1002 540 comments · 12 Years

Boo hoo. Now I can't listen to KISS FM in every major city of the U.S.

gmgravytrain 884 comments · 8 Years

My Grace Digital Internet Radio has an iHeartRadio channel and it was OK to listen to on occasion. I mainly listen to Pandora or my iTunes library on that internet radio device. It's a shame. I can't say I'm happy if Apple is directly to blame. Even as an Apple shareholder, I'm not overjoyed at other streaming services going out of business. However, $20B is a lot of debt and that is likely due to very poor management over a long period of time and very little to do with AppleMusic.

maestro64 5029 comments · 19 Years

tokyojimu said:

Those huge leveraged buyouts never seem to work out well. Another example this week: Toys ‘R’ Us.

Yeah i was thinking the exact same thing, and Wall Street wants Apple to do large buyout like this.

I did not realize iheart was Clearchannel, knowing that it could not have happen to a nicer group of people. Clearchannel destroyed music listening, they started the whole fix format radio, got rid of radio personalities, and just played music loops or rebroadcast interviews across the country. For the channel where they had live people and they did a Music artist interview, they would send out a taped answers to questions, and the local radio station would ask the questions, then play the tape with the answers. I remember Howard Stern getting hold of one of these and creating his own questions and edited the answers.

GeorgeBMac 11421 comments · 8 Years

tokyojimu said:

Those huge leveraged buyouts never seem to work out well. Another example this week: Toys ‘R’ Us.

HUH?
They work out quite well for the Bain Capitals who orchestrate it.
step 1 -- Borrow the money
step 2 -- Buy the company
step 3 -- Load the company down with the loans they used to buy it with
step 4 -- Declare bankruptcy and wipe out those loans....

It's nice work if you can get it. The only people who lose are the employees and those stupid enough to loan them the money.

Oh wait! I forgot! Mitt told us how he actually SAVES these companies with that scam.