iHM Lets Women Take the Mic on March 8
In recognition of International Women’s Day on March 8, iHeartMedia presents “Women Take the Mic” in which women will lead the conversation all day across the company’s music stations and also present 10 International Women’s Day special episodes from top female-hosted podcasts including Angela Yee’s
“Lip Service,” “Chiquis and Chill,” “Dear Chelsea with Chelsea Handler,” “The Nikki Glaser Podcast,” “The Psychology of Your 20s,” “Reasonably Shady,” “Therapy for Black Girls,” “There Are No Girls On The Internet with Bridget Todd,” “Very Special Episodes with Dana Schwartz,” and “Womanica.” Each of these shows will feature women sharing their personal stories of shattering stereotypes, creating opportunities, and inspiring the next generation to find their own voice and share it with the world.
than 65 stations. “The John Clay Wolfe Show” is a Saturday morning program that focuses on Wolfe’s love of cars, comedy, and daily observations along with celebrity guests like Sammy Hagar, Adam Carolla, and Cheech & Chong.
“Math & Magic: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing with Bob Pittman,” in which he speaks with leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries across music, film, live entertainment, marketing and more. The first episode of this season features Kellyn Kenny, AT&T’s chief marketing and growth officer, who has also served with such companies as Microsoft, Hilton, Capital One and Uber. 
2022. iHeartMedia breaks down its operations into segments and here’s what it reports for the full year of 2023: Broadcast Radio revenue was $1.75 billion (down 7% from 2022), Networks revenue was $466 million (down 7.3%), Podcast revenue was $407.8 million (up 13.8%), and Digital (excluding Podcast) revenue was $661 million (basically flat). iHeartMedia chairman and CEO Bob Pittman states, “We’re pleased to report that our fourth quarter results were in line with our previously provided Adjusted EBITDA and Revenue guidance ranges. This quarter the Digital Audio Group achieved the highest Adjusted EBITDA and margin in its history, illustrating the success of this high growth business. We view 2024 as a recovery year in which the company returns to growth mode – we expect to see our Multiplatform Group performance improve quarter by quarter throughout the year, and we expect our Digital Audio Group, including our industry leading podcast business, to continue to grow and reinforce its leadership position in the segment.”
AM/FM, Dayton. The program aired in the 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm ET daypart and the stations are going to replace the show with “The Erick Erickson Show” based at CMG’s WSB-AM/WSBB-FM, Atlanta. The Erickson program is syndicated by Compass Media Networks. It appears that producer Hannah Guile is also exiting as a result of this move. TALKERS reached out to Mark Kaye who requested that all questions and inquiries be directed to his agent Heather Cohen at The Weiss Agency.
those living in suburban or urban areas. Rural listeners spend 43% of their daily audio listening time with AM/FM radio and radio streams, compared with urban listeners who spend 34% of their time with AM/FM radio and radio streams. Meanwhile, Urban listeners spend over twice as much of their daily audio time with podcasts as rural listeners. Urban listeners spend 13% of their daily audio time with podcasts compared with rural listeners who spend 6% of their daily time with podcasts.” Interestingly, if you combine the AM/FM listening and podcast listening numbers for Urban, Suburban and Rural listeners, these numbers are essentially the same – between 47% and 49%. Edison notes, “It appears that the ‘time budget’ for radio and podcasting combined is consistent across locations; it is just the apportionment of that time that varies.”
news/talk KOGO-AM, talk KLSD-AM, sports talk KGB-AM, and five music brands. iHeartMedia San Diego market president Noreen Ippolito says, “We are so excited to welcome Taylor into our San Diego cluster. Her knowledge of the audio business and track record speak for themselves. We are eager for Taylor to bring her skill set and big ideas from Miami to an already incredible cluster of stations.”
Communications’ WNOV-AM, Milwaukee; and Minority Communications’ KJMC-FM, Des Moines. SmileyAudioMedia owner and program host Tavis Smiley says, “Our show’s rapid and continued expansion into key media markets represents an exciting next chapter. As we move deeper into the 2024 election season, we’ll continue to provide our growing listener base with enlightening and empowering programming unapologetically geared toward African Americans and other citizens of color.” The program is heard in Chicago on Midway Communications’ WVON-AM; LEVAS Communications’ WURD-AM, Philadelphia; and Equity Media’s WBOK-AM, New Orleans and plans to announce more new affiliate stations later in the spring.
devotion to Internet radio broadcasting, we are launching ‘The Mike Church Show’ into terrestrial radio syndication! The launch date of ‘The Mike Church Show’ will be March 1 and the show will begin its repatriation of AM/FM radio in Atlanta, Georgia’s #7 U.S. radio market on WXKG “The King”! Church adds, “We’ve always known that terrestrial radio was going to play a part in our industry leading development of Internet radio, we just didn’t know in what way. Over the last two years, that role began to materialize with the dearth of quality talk shows and the opportunities to fill that gap left by the wrecking ball that was consolidation’s march through local radio properties.” The program airs live from 7:00 am to 10:00 am ET. 
Show” airs from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Program director Kathryn Lake comments, “Wisconsinites will play a crucial role this year in determining who represents the state in Madison and in the nation’s capital. The experience Jane Matenaer, Todd Allbaugh and Maggie Daun bring to the midday microphones will provide listeners across the state compelling stories and important updates about what is happening in their communities and throughout Wisconsin.”
from the full year of 2022. Cumulus reported net income of $16.2 million for 2022, while posting a net loss of $117.9 million for the full year of 2023. Cumulus president and CEO Mary G. Berner says, “While 2023 was a tough year across the media landscape, we were able to offset some of the effects of the weak national advertising climate through strong execution in our key focus areas. Specifically, we grew our digital businesses, meaningfully reduced fixed costs, and improved our balance sheet. Looking ahead, though national advertisers are expressing interest in increasing their radio buys, as of yet, ad demand remains choppy, reducing our visibility into the rest of 2024. That said, our industry-leading performance during similarly weak macro environments gives us significant confidence in our ability to navigate through this one and rebound strongly when the advertising market improves.” Looking at Cumulus’ business segments, the digital segment to which Berner refers was up 5% in Q4 of 2023 to $39.6 million, but total broadcast revenue during the quarter was down 18.2%. Spot revenue declined 18.3% and network revenue was off 17.9% in Q4 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.