iHeartMedia has reported its first quarter revenue for 2021, with revenue down 9.5 percent to $707 million from $780.6 million a year ago. The company’s operating loss was just under $76.4 million and net loss was $242 million.
iHeart’s digital audio results grew by 69.8 percent in Q1, up to $157.6 million. Podcasting revenue was up by 142 percent in the quarter. Additionally, digital represented 22 percent of the company’s overall revenue in Q1.
“The first quarter outperformed our expectations on all financial metrics as the company continues its steady recovery from the COVID-19 downturn, which is not just a continuation of the positive trends we’ve seen across the business – we believe it’s a validation of our long-term multiplatform product and revenue strategy and the investments we have made in growth areas like podcasting, ad tech and the continued expansion of broadcast radio on digital devices,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman/CEO of iHeartMedia. “As a company we continue to prioritize identifying new opportunities across the audio, advertising, and data analytics sectors to expand our Total Addressable Market from just the $15B of Radio TAM to include the $160B of Digital TAM, providing us with new revenue opportunities for meaningful and sustainable growth for all our operating segments.”
“Our ability to adapt and innovate, as well as our strategic allocation of capital, during the COVID-19 pandemic have set the stage for strong growth in 2021. Our cost management, investments in key areas of growth, and focus on our core-competencies helped us to achieve Adjusted EBITDA of $102 million in the first quarter, and we remain confident that we will be back to 2019 Adjusted EBITDA levels by the end of 2021,” said iHeart President/COO/CFO Rich Bressler.
