iHM Reports Q4 Revenues Jumped 5 Percent

iHeartMedia, Inc. today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2015.

Fourth quarter revenues for iHeartMedia increased $45 million, or 5.2% to $899 million, the company reported Thursday morning. Excluding the impact of political revenue, billings grew 8% or $63 million. For the full year 2015, revenues increased $123 million, or 3.9%, to $3.28 billion when compared to 2014.

The company cited increases in its core radio business, both broadcast and digital, for the full year revenue growth. That includes the impact of marketing partnerships with advertisers for live events, like the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the iHeartRadio Music Awards, the iHeart Country Festival and Jingle Ball concert tour, along with trade and barter revenue, traffic and weather business and growth in its Premiere Networks syndication business, driven by growth in the news/talk format. The increases were partially offset by decreases in political dollars since 2015 wasn’t a congressional election year. Subtracting political from the equation, full year revenues increased $155 million, or 5%.

Bob Pittman

“We continue to be pleased with our progress in transforming the company into a multi-platform, data-rich powerhouse, with our investments driving strong operating results,” said Bob Pittman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Rich Bressler

“At iHeartMedia, the fast-blurring lines between digital and broadcast radio play to our strengths, and the CRB’s new rates will encourage the growth of digital streaming and help build a sustainable digital music marketplace to benefit artists, consumers and the rest of the music industry. We are building on our traditional media sales business by partnering with agencies and clients to launch major marketing initiatives enhanced by rich data and research insights across our core broadcast, live events and other businesses. At Outdoor, we continue to move forward in aligning our Americas and International portfolios to focus on our most attractive strategic opportunities, while tapping into new programmatic and data-learning trends that our advertising partners value highly.”

“With a strong fourth quarter performance, and excluding the impact from foreign exchange rates, we showed growth in both revenue and OIBDAN in 2015 across iHeartMedia, Americas outdoor and International outdoor, despite strong headwinds in certain overseas economies,” said Rich Bressler, President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. “The strength of our operating business provides us with the flexibility to manage our capital structure in a prudent way. We continue to evaluate opportunities to strengthen our balance sheet as we focus on positioning iHeartMedia for long-term growth.”