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.
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.
Comments
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.
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.
First I did not say iHeartRadio did this, Clear Channel was the one who bough up all these radio stations over the last 30 yrs and did these fix formats. What you are talking about in TV, yes the national Networks would do an interview and then each local station rebroadcast the interview as if they did them, and yes some would edit out the National person and edit in their own local person to make it look like the local guy did the interview. Clear Channel did this as matter of course. The Music celebrity would record can answers to can questions, in some cases those questions would be handed to the local station and they would ask the question and play the can answer. Most times the interview would be rolling into the play list for all the local stations. This was all done to make it look like the Local station actually had the Celebrity call in to the local station. For the big name local station they could get a personalize intro from the Celebrity to make it look even more like it was personal to the local market.
Clear Channel had strangle hold on the music industry, they would refuse to put songs or artist into their play lists if the did not play along with them. I personally think Apple and the streaming market killed Clear Channel business model since people can now had other ways to find new music without having to listen to the radio.