The Justice Department has greenlit a bid by Liberty Media to increase its stake in iHeartMedia, owner of the country's largest network of broadcast stations — a deal that would expand the radio market dominance of a company that already controls Sirius XM and Pandora.
Politico reports the deal approved by antitrust prosecutors Wednesday would allow Liberty to increase its shares in iHeartMedia up to 50 percent. Liberty currently has a 5 percent stake in iHeartMedia, which owns more than 850 AM and FM radio stations and the streaming service iHeartRadio, the world’s top commercial publisher of podcasts.
Wendy Goldberg, a spokesperson for iHeartRadio, confirmed the Justice Department’s approval and referred further comment to Liberty Media.
Liberty, owned by billionaire John Malone, already owns a controlling stake in SiriusXM, the U.S.’s biggest satellite radio provider, which bought streaming radio platform Pandora last year. Liberty has a 33 percent stake in Live Nation Entertainment, the biggest concert promotion firm and ticketing company.
A coalition of consumer and anti-monopoly groups, including the Open Markets Institute, Public Citizen and the Center for Digital Democracy, opposed the deal, arguing it would be “likely catastrophic” on radio markets and lead to fewer options, less diversity in programming and higher prices.
Last year, Liberty orchestrated Sirius’s purchase of internet-radio company Pandora Media Inc.—in which it also held a controlling stake—for $3 billion, another move intended to compete more effectively against Spotify Technology SA and other on-demand music-streaming services.
The Wall Street Journal reports Liberty Chief Executive Greg Maffei at an investor day in late November touted the company’s increased focus on audio and particularly its exposure to the “exploding” podcast market including through iHeart, the No. 2 publisher by audience, according to Podtrac, a podcast-analytics company.
If Liberty were to gain control of iHeart, it would represent a major consolidation of the avenues by which music and other audio content is distributed, promoted and monetized.
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