iHM Layoffs The Result of Industry Struggles, Debt Woes

Bob Pittman Under Pressure To Reduce Debt

iHeartMedia, has laid off another round of employees in recent days, as the debt-plagued radio industry continues to contract during the music-streaming era. 

“Right now, it seems like the business model they’ve had the last few years, of making one person do 40 people’s jobs, is where it’s going,” says Nick Jordan, an assistant program director of Raleigh, N.C., country station WNCB until he lost his iHeart job Monday (Nov. 4). “But we did a good job, for as long as we could, keeping everything local and community-oriented.”

According to Billboard, a rep for iHeart, which owns 860 stations in 160 U.S. markets and advertises “there’s a local iHeartRadio station virtually everywhere,” would not specify the number of recent layoffs, which follows a wave of job cuts in March and others since the pandemic. Radio-news outlets such as Radio and Music Pros and Barrett Media have listed more than a dozen laid-off names this week, including morning-show hosts, promotion and programming execs and big-city regional directors. 

“S— happens,” says Jordan, 31, a nine-year industry veteran. “It’s part of the radio business.”

Although radio listenership has declined, according to some studies, the business remains resilient, drawing 82% of adult Americans as of 2022. And while major labels such as Universal and Atlantic have correspondingly laid off radio-promotion employees over the past year, the medium is still important for breaking hits, especially in country and other genres.

According to Wendy Goldberg, an iHeart spokesperson, “very few jobs” have been affected in the 10,000-employee company. She rebuts data that suggests a decline in audience consumption.

“Our broadcast radio audience has more listeners than it did 10 years ago,” she says, citing a Nielsen study that shows that younger listeners increased slightly in the third quarter of this year. She adds that iHeart remains “the No. 1 podcast publisher, bigger than the next two combined, and we’re five times the size of the next largest digital-radio service.”

“We’ve been able to achieve this by modernizing the company and increasing our use of technology,” Goldberg says in a statement. “These changes are another step in that journey.”

Meanwhile,  Radio Ink reports several front office executives are out:

• Chicago Regional President Matt Scarano is out after a decade in the role. Scarano previously spent two years as iHeart Atlanta Market President following three years as the Chicago cluster’s Director of Sales.
• Texas/Arkansas Area President Clyde Bass has been let go. 
• Northern California Regional Senior Vice President of Programming Don Parker is named in the RIF. Parker was also GM of iHeart’s LGBTQ+ network, Pride Radio.

Previously announced: Senior Vice President of Programming for Des Moines, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and North Dakota Greg Chance, Boston Region President Alan Chartrand, and Raleigh Market President Michael Burger.