As for his radio show, while he’s on a longterm contract, iHeart Radio (formerly Clear Channel), who syndicates it under the name of Premiere Networks, along with Rush Limbaugh, faces massive debt. Uncertain future for Rush and Sean at least with iHeart. [Rush made $50M per year for 8 years but when he re-upped with iHR the terms were not as rosy...]
>>iHeartMedia Inc., the biggest operator of radio stations in the U.S. and headed by Bob Pittman of MTV fame, plans to include language in its next quarterly report warning investors that it may not survive another year...Some experts said bankruptcy is now almost inevitable.
That reminds me, almost off-topic, that Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital put Clear Channel/iHeart into a spiral of debt that inevitably would put the radio group into eventual bankruptcy.
That deal was dicey even if all the pieces fell into place. The economic collaspe and advertisers spreading the same ad dollars over ever more fragmented advertising platforms simply added more nails to the coffin. And they bought up the competition without keeping product and advertising unique. I saw numbers from one market where ad revenue was less than 10 percent of what a previous owner had it. Sure, the economy was a factor, but the property became a flanking station with no unique place in the market. And the stations it was protecting wasn’t growing revenue. In acquisitions, one and one often doesn’t equal two.