iHeartMedia, Inc. Q1 FY2021 Earnings Call

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the iHeartMedia Q1 2021 Earnings Call. My name is and I will be coordinating your call for you today. I am now going to hand the call over to your host Mike McGuinness, Executive Vice President, Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Head of Investor Relations at iHeartMedia. Mike please go ahead when you are ready.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join us for our first quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining me for today's discussion are Bob Pittman, our Chairman and CEO; and Rich Bressler, our President, COO and CFO. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, management will take your questions. Please note that in addition to our press release, we have an investor presentation that you can use to follow along with our remarks. Before we begin, let me quickly cover the safe harbor statement on Slide 2. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements, including the current and expected impact of COVID-19 on the company's liquidity, financial position, and results of operations. These estimates are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could materially differ from these expectations and assumptions, and these risks and uncertainties are discussed in more detail in our filings with the SEC. During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations between our GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings release or in the investor presentation available on our website. And now I'll turn the call over to Bob.

Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our first quarter 2021 conference call. Before I begin, I'd like to once again acknowledge our employees around the country for their steadfast resilience this past year. COVID has presented challenges both professionally and personally. Our employees' hard work, innovation, creativity, and dedication helped the company weather an incredibly challenging 2020 and continue to make a difference in the communities they serve. Our employees are behind the momentum and strong results we're announcing today, and they've set the stage for what we believe is a full recovery to 2019 levels by the end of 2021. For iHeart, the first quarter of 2021 was a continuation of the positive trends we've seen in the business despite the continued negative impact of COVID, with the first quarter outperforming our expectations in all financial metrics. We continue to see positive trends in our diverse revenue streams. Our digital business, including podcasting, continues its strong growth trajectory, while our traditional broadcast radio business continued its sequential improvement, both aided by the recovery of advertising and the strategic investments we've made. Before we get into the first quarter results, I want to touch on a few things. First, we all see the same headlines you do. Audio is hot. Everything in audio is growing. In fact, over the past two years, streaming audio users are up 21%. Smart speaker ownership is up 50%, voice assistant users are up 23%, earbud and headphone unit sales are up 90%, and podcast weekly listeners are up 42%. High-growth companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have recently announced audio initiatives. With that as a backdrop, I want to remind you that we are number one in consumer reach across all key profitable audio platforms. We create more audio content than anyone else. We have the largest sales force in the audio sector. Therefore, we expect to continue to benefit from these trends. Now looking at how this impacts our financial performance, our business continues its sequential revenue and profit improvement, improving month by month since the low point of Q2 2020. Let me talk about our two big segments. The iHeart multi-platform group has the greatest reach of any media company in America, and we continue to transform our capabilities to monetize that huge consumer reach using analytics and technology. The multi-platform group, using its unparalleled reach, has been and continues to be the foundation for all our groundbreaking advancements in the audio space, including our high growth digital business. The iHeart digital audio group, which has been the focus of much of our investments over the past few years and is led by our industry-leading podcast business, continues its strong revenue and profitability growth. Our digital audio group revenue grew 70% in the first quarter, led by podcasting, which grew 142%. Importantly, excluding the impact of podcasting, digital revenue still grew 55% year-over-year, demonstrating the importance of our broad digital offerings. In the first quarter, the digital audio group contributed 22% of the company's revenue and 39% of the company's adjusted EBITDA, and importantly, did so while increasing its margins, with first quarter margins expanding by 750 basis points year-over-year. These results are a continued validation of our multi-platform product and revenue strategy, a unique scale, the cost discipline we exercised in 2020 and continue to exercise today, and the strategic investments we've made in our new growth areas like podcasting, ad tech, and the continued expansion of broadcast radio on digital devices. We believe our resource allocation decisions are proving to be the right ones, as we have built a high growth digital business on top of our large ad scale stable multi-platform business. Leveraging our unique position in audio and taking advantage of shifting consumer behaviors, we're expanding our total addressable market (TAM) beyond radio, targeting approximately 20 billion in sponsorship TAM, approximately 65 billion in television TAM, and approximately 160 billion in digital TAM in the U.S., which is the largest TAM and is 10x the size of the broadcast radio TAM. Our leadership position in both broadcast and digital audio enabled us to create the only complete audio ad technology stack in the industry for all forms of audio on demand, broadcast radio, digital streaming radio, and podcasting. This not only generates value for all of iHeart, but it is becoming a valuable asset on its own. The acquisition of Triton digital, which closed on March 31, significantly enhanced this platform. Based on what we see now, we feel more confident than ever that we'll be back to 2019 adjusted EBITDA levels by the end of 2021, setting ourselves up for continued strong adjusted EBITDA growth. With that, I'll turn it to Rich to discuss how the business performed in the quarter before he gets into the specifics of our financials. We are encouraged by the strong results we delivered in the first quarter despite continued headwinds from the COVID-19 pandemic. Reported revenues were down 9.5%. As you may recall, during our Q4 earnings call, we said we expected revenue to be down 11% to 13%, and this outperformance was primarily driven by our digital audio group. Excluding the impact of political spending, our trend of year-over-year sequential quarterly improvement continued from down 47% in Q2, to down 25% in Q3, to down 17% in Q4, and down 7% in the first quarter of 2021. In the first quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of 102 million and generated free cash flow of 53 million, highlighting the strong free cash flow characteristics of our business.

Thanks, Bob. We continue to see improving trends in the macroeconomic environment, and our financial results continue their sequential improvement. However, our total revenues remain down year-over-year, and as Bob mentioned earlier, we recognize there is still more hard work to be done. We continue to remain confident that our first quarter results have us firmly on the path to be back in 2019 adjusted EBITDA levels at the end of 2021, setting ourselves up for strong adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow growth in 2022 and beyond. In terms of our first quarter results, you can turn to slide 9 of our investor deck. On a reported basis, our consolidated revenues decreased by 9.5% over the prior year period. As Bob mentioned on our fourth-quarter call, we indicated we expected revenues to be down 11% to 13%. Excluding the impact of political spending, our first quarter revenues declined 7.2%. Direct operating expenses decreased 0.4%, driven primarily by lower employee compensation expenses resulting from our modernization and cost reduction initiatives taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, lower variable costs associated with low revenues, and as a result of the postponement or cancellation of in-person events. These decreases were offset by higher variable costs in our digital audio group as a result of the strong growth in digital revenue. SG&A expenses decreased approximately 13%, driven by lower employee compensation resulting from cost reduction initiatives in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with lower sales commissions, which were lower as a result of the decrease in multi-platform group revenue. Trade and barter expenses also decreased primarily as a result of the cancellation and postponement of events as well as travel and entertainment expenses resulting from operating expense savings initiatives. These decreases, which primarily impacted our multi-platform group, were partially offset by higher expenses for our digital audio group and other increases compared to the first quarter of 2020, including variable compensation across our business and corporate function. Our first quarter GAAP operating loss was $76 million, compared to $1.7 billion in the prior year quarter, and our first quarter adjusted EBITDA was 102 million, compared to 140 million in the prior year quarter. If you turn back to slide 5, I'll provide some additional color on the performance of our operating segments. The digital audio group's revenues were up 70% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was up 141% year-over-year. As Bob mentioned, in the first quarter, the digital audio group contributed 22% of the company's revenue and 39% of the company's adjusted EBITDA and importantly, did so by expanding its first quarter margins by 750 basis points year-over-year. Within the digital audio group, our podcasting business saw revenues grow 142% year-over-year. Importantly, our non-podcasting digital audio revenues grew 55% year-over-year, demonstrating the importance of our broad digital offerings that are in high demand despite the economic downturn. The multi-platform group revenues were down 21% in Q1, down 19% excluding political, continuing sequential improvement, with 21% adjusted EBITDA margins, down only 310 basis points from the prior year. Within the multi-platform group, our broadcast revenues were down 22% year-over-year, and our networks revenues were down 14%. Network revenues include premiere, which were down only 6%. Our sponsorship and event revenues were down 24% year-over-year, and the audio and media services group revenue decreased by 9% on a reported basis, excluding the impact of political spending, and I would remind you that we saw material political spending in the first quarter of 2020; revenues were up 1%. Turning back to our consolidated results and looking at the items below the line, interest expense decreased by $5 million compared to the same period in 2020 as we continue to improve our balance sheet and reduce our cost of capital. At quarter-end, we had approximately $5.6 billion of net debt outstanding, which includes a cash balance of 529 million. As a reminder, the terms of our debt structure include no material maintenance covenants, and there are no material debt maturities prior to 2026. In the first quarter, we generated $53 million of free cash flow. As Bob mentioned, we also continue to successfully execute on our previously managed savings initiatives. Our pre-COVID modernization initiatives remain on track to achieve a $100 million run rate by mid-2021, and in 2021, we expect to replicate the majority of the $200 million in post-COVID savings. The pandemic forced us to transform the way we do business more rapidly than we could have ever imagined. We continue to benefit from our experience and strictly adhering to these changes. The actions we have taken leave us well-positioned for margin expansion as advertising activity continues to recover. As we look ahead to the rest of 2021, I want to provide you with the following. Our April revenues were up approximately 85% compared to the prior year, keeping in mind that last April was the month that was hardest hit by COVID. In the second quarter, we expect revenue to be up approximately 65% year-over-year. Our podcasting business continues its strong performance with April up approximately 170% compared to the prior year. We expect our digital audio group momentum to continue for the full year. We believe that we will be back to 2019 adjusted EBITDA levels by the end of 2021. A few things to note about our expectations for free cash flow in 2021. We will not be a cash taxpayer due to NOL carryforwards that we will utilize to offset taxable income. Interest expense will be approximately $335 million to $345 million. In terms of capital expenditures, there is a significant real estate reduction we are working on to drive meaningful savings. Our capital expenditures in 2021 will be $165 million to $185 million, and then return to normal levels in 2022. During the time of the real estate consolidation, capital expenditures will be more heavily weighted towards the second half of the year. We continue to make steady progress in our recovery, benefiting from our strict cost discipline, the resiliency of our high-growth areas, and the gradual improvements in the macroeconomic environment. We believe that there's still real work ahead of us, but we're proud of the way our company, and particularly our people, navigated through this challenging period. We've read the decisions we've made over the past year leave us well-positioned to take advantage of the improvements in the advertising ecosystem driven by the innovation and diligence we exercised this past year. We look forward to continuing our business recovery with the expectation that we'll be back to 2019 adjusted EBITDA levels by the end of 2021 and the resumption of our deleveraging activities, which were slow during the pandemic. In closing, we'd like to thank our employees who are committed to serving our listeners and our communities. We'd also like to thank our business partners who stuck with us during this challenging time. We appreciate you joining our first-quarter earnings call. And now we will turn it over to the operator to take your questions.

Thank you. The first question comes from Jessica Reif Ehrlich from Bank of America. Jessica, please go ahead.

Thanks. I have a couple. Can I just start with maybe the NFL? That seems like it should have been a very competitive fight to get that. Can you give us some color on the ramp-up, the magnitude of the impact? And will you say exclusive to the teams have separate rights? Or do they want everything full on to this deal?

Well, we haven't announced all the details of it yet, Jessica. So I don't want to step into it right here. But I think your comment is exactly right that this was a competitive situation. I think the NFL really looked through who could help them the most in terms of pulling the audience together for them and, as we said in our comments, it's an interesting combination of we've got this audience, they've got this incredible content, and together we're able to pull it together, I think, to do something no one else could do together. I think the opportunity to monetize it efficiently and effectively is important to them and obviously important to us. For us, we love the NFL because it takes our sports programming and broadcasting to another level. Again, I think it's an indication of the unique position we're in podcasting. Not just the NFL, but overall is that if you have a big idea, or you've got a big bet on podcasting, you'd really like to start with the biggest first. We tend to get the first look at almost everything. Not to say we do every deal, but we usually have that first conversation just as you've seen in the entertainment business over the years that the biggest usually gets to talk first.

Great.

Hey Jessica, I might add to what Bob just said is that when we've said this before with other content deals is our opposition in podcasting and our ability to give somebody the highest probabilities of being successful. When you look at it, you could assume the tried and I think the NFL tells us about the probability of success.

Right. I don't think you'd get any the highest level you can get. So I think, and then maybe I'll just ask the other two questions. We've had great cost management, obviously, with the great quarter. What expenses do you think could come back post-COVID? And then maybe a trickier question, but you've got a couple of suitors ask for the company, is there anything you could say about the status of either or both of them?

We'll be talking about the cost. Clearly, we didn't pay bonuses last year. We're going to give bonuses again. There will be some travel and entertainment that will come back, but also, we had before, I think we have permanently altered how we think about travel and entertainment. Some variable costs go up, obviously, as revenue goes up; we have sales costs that go with that on a variable cost basis, but those are the major thrust in terms of what will come back.

Yes, and Jess, just maybe for yourself and the audience, we are on track to take out the monetization issues of $100 million by the middle of this year on a run-rate basis. As Bob pointed out, yes we have some costs coming back, but we expect to replicate the majority of the $200 million of post-COVID savings we had last year. I think, third, to your comment up front about our ability to manage costs. Again, those are already announced and on track to be implemented. But we're just always looking to be more efficient, always looking to take advantage of technology and drive more value to the bottom line.

We expect to replicate the majority of the $200 million in post-COVID savings we achieved last year. We are always seeking ways to be more efficient, utilizing technology to enhance our bottom line.

I don't think there's really anything we could probably say on the suitors. I think we've said whatever.

Yes, and Jess I want to add that people are recognizing the value of audio, but Bob's opening comment was how hot audio is and people from an investor standpoint, recognizing the equity value creation, which is great for all the people that buy our stock.

Great. Thank you.

The next question comes from Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo. Steven, please go ahead.

Thanks. I wanted to begin with digital audio a little bit more. So podcast growth accelerated, non-podcast digital growth accelerated, and digital audio adjusted EBITDA growth accelerated. So it's all going great. Maybe help rein in our enthusiasm a little bit. I'm guessing you don't want us to model it up 70% on the revenue line each quarter at a mid 20% margin. So maybe just help us put the medium-term growth rate at digital audio into perspective a little bit?

Well, first the fact—and thanks for recognizing the growth. What we said, I don't think in both in Bob's opening remarks, that we expect that continued strength in growth on digital as you go throughout the year. You highlighted that we're up; I think it's important for us to note that podcasting revenues are up 142%, and we've continued that. We've talked about digital being up 55%. I think it is, excluding podcasting, to 70%. Saying anything more than that right now, we tend not to give more guidance. But I think we get a pretty strong indication that we expect growth to be strong throughout the rest of the year.

Okay, that's fair. And then maybe just on smart audio, I think you said it was down just 11% in Q1. Curious if it's positive in April and what percentage of multi-platform or terrestrial radio is now being sold on smart audio and any sense of how much better you monetize when you sell through smart audio like a CPM comparison or something like that?

We haven't broken out any of those numbers. And again, as Rich said, we don't want to give guidance here or provide that level of granularity, but appreciate the interest in it. We're excited about smart audio transforming broadcast radio into a platform that can be used by digital buyers and to begin the digital TAM.

Yes, but maybe just one thing I might add to that, Steven, just to take a big step back without getting into specifics again. You look at our overall first quarter results, you look at the what we talked about for the April results, you look at the guidance we gave for Q2, and you look at our general directional comments for the rest of the year. I think you could take each of your questions and say that while we remain wildly under-monetized because of the efficiency of the medium, it's a great opportunity. We're clearly making great progress on the front.

Yes. And then last, maybe just Rich, a housekeeping one, thanks for the precautionary commentary regarding the NOLs extend past 2021. As you're generating free cash flow this year, would you pay down some debt or just build some cash on the balance sheet?

Well, we'll continue. So the NOLs pretty much run out by the end of this year. So good question, so thank you for that. So everybody's aware of that. Look, I think if you look at even last year, it was a challenging period, we generated over $130 million of cash and paid down debt. We will continue to work through our free cash flow to pay down debt as we go into this year. We continue to be laser-focused on deleveraging, which creates a lot of equity value. I might also just add, just maybe for completeness, if you look at the opportunities around the balance sheet, just to remind everybody, we've got the eight and three debts that are coming out for refinancing. So we're also going to have the ability to improve our interest expense and cash flow attributes of the company in addition to the operating results.

Yes. Thank you.

The next question comes from Dan at Securities. Dan, please proceed.

Yes. Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. Just wanted to start off and ask if you see any specific advertising categories that are leading the way here as you're seeing this dramatic recovery in ad revenues and specifically, if you have any commentary on some people talking about radio being this ideal grand reopening advertising medium. So just any tailwind from that and then categories that you've seen that have been particularly strong. Thanks.

It's interesting. Compared to the downturn, almost everybody is out. Entertainment was hit particularly hard, but it's also coming back really well. For us, we've got a great diversity of categories. Unlike many businesses that are heavily dependent on certain categories, there's no single category that's over 5% of our revenue, and there's no single advertiser that's over 2% of our revenue. For us, having that diversity is a very important part of our revenue strategy. It continues through the recovery period, and you're exactly right; there's no better way to get the message out for anything than radio. As people look to cost efficiencies, radio has always been, perhaps, one of the most efficient of all media, especially compared to TV, which is getting more and more expensive on a per-user basis relative to radio.

Okay, Dan. One point I might add is that I think, to Bob's point about both our ability nationally and locally, just as a reminder to everybody, we've got almost 2000 feet on the street—2000 people selling advertising, and we're all selling advertising. But 2000 people are kind of officially selling advertising all the time. Clearly, that's a competitive advantage for us.

Yes. Thanks. That's great. And then just I will ask one specifically with the NFL partnership in mind. Great job on that. Sports betting as a category, your radio footprint isn't as sports-concentrated as your peers, but you obviously have a lot of reach with the kind of millennials that they're to sign up for the app. So just any commentary on growth in sports betting category for you guys?

Yes, it's actually a great growth category. We actually have a couple of stations dedicated to sports betting called The Gambler. We do a lot of play-by-play sports on our radio stations. We are probably not as concentrated in sports because we're very diverse in terms of it. Given our large footprint and sort of two to one lead over anybody else's sports footprint, even with that diversity, there's absolute numbers with a lot of sports opportunities. We are seeing that sports-oriented advertisers are very interested in sports betting. So they’re playing it well, I think.

Great. Just one last one for me on podcasting. I mean, you guys have made your strategy clear: you want to make it as widely available as possible. Do you see yourselves rolling out something like Apple and Spotify have done, where you allow content creators to monetize their content via a subscription option and then maybe you take a cut of that? Is that something that was on the table here?

Well, we could do anything that makes sense because we've got the big library, and we've got this incredible output. What we found is that the content creators basically want to reach as many people as they can, and that appears to be by far the best economic model we can profit from. I think no one has yet proven that there is any subscription opportunity in podcasting. By the way, a number of people have tried before just Spotify and Apple have not succeeded yet. If they ever did, obviously, we've got the library to take advantage of it. But as I mentioned in my comments, if you look at this business, subscription is usually succeeded where you've been able to take something that was more expensive on an al a carte basis and make it cheaper through a subscription. Instead of buying two movies a month, you pay for Netflix for the month, then you save money. In podcasting, it's free. When you're asking people to pay for something they got free, that limits the size of the audience, which limits which creators won't do it. It’s going to be a very small pool of consumers that will do it. We'll see. But again, we follow the trends of consumer behavior, and we're not optimistic that there's anything there. But we're open-minded, and we're publishers. Our goal is to maximize the value of these assets we have. At the same time, we understand that the heart of creating any success is to make sure we have great creators, and creators want to have a bigger success, meaning reaching as many people as they can.

And Dan, by the way, while we haven't spoken, we actually got to be invested back at only lower paid two days off, and we have the March to Bob's point. We have the March podcast rankings from Pod Track, which is the third-party measurement standard for podcasting. We'll reinforce it with numbers. I want to just go back to the first comment that Jessica opened with, which is being competitive in the marketplace for something like the NFL. There’s no different than Will Ferrell or Shonda Rhimes out there, and they all choose us, which is phenomenal to be their partner because of the ability to give them the best shot of success.

Hi, thanks for taking the question. Just a quick follow-up on that—while the subscription strategy you've outlined, how you're viewing it. But longer term is that indeed successful because some of the folks playing in that camp have revenue streams to attach other services, etc., to that. I mean, does that perhaps create potential for content wars for lack of a better term, and maybe you win by losing in terms of keeping content on the platform, just maybe think of the content angle as it pertains to the subscription model. Any comments there?

Well, I think what we've seen is that this business, the distributed content strategy appears to win because it gives people the most opportunities to get to the largest audience possible. That's what makes a hit. There are very few creators that are interested in anything other than the biggest audience they can get because they want to have a hit. In terms of when you talk about content wars, we're in pretty good shape on sort of like any scenario you want to run. We've got this secret weapon called broadcast radio, and we are able to build a hit podcast by promoting on broadcast radio, putting that kind of firepower into the kind of reach and frequency we do to promote it, making sure that we see show up in terms of downloads almost immediately. I don’t think there's anybody else in this business that’s got it. Apple has heretofore used the Apple promotion to help push podcasts get started. But I think other than that, I don't see anybody that comes close to what we've got. For us, we can both go out and get major stars, whether Shonda Rhimes or the NFL or Will Ferrell. We're also able to build podcasts from scratch from people you've never heard of, but we think have potential. That gives us the opportunity to continue to build scale. If you look at the last year, we've continued to build on our increase in share among the top podcasters, widening the gap between us and everybody else.

Great and then one thing on that, one last question on the broadcast segment. We've talked that, you've said in the past that there's a lot of pent-up demand there, and as restrictions are lifted, you see a lot of demand coming through the terrestrial segment. So anything changed this quarter regarding the longer-term trajectory of that business that could return to full recovery over the next couple of years, and just anything on the broadcast segment, particularly as you're looking at Q2 and maybe the 65% of revenue growth—how that perhaps plays into that? Any color there would be great.

Yes. I appreciate it, Sebastian, the question. There is really not a lot more we can say, in terms of guidance. But I think we tried to go back to Q2 of last year and show you the progress that we continue to make. As we go into the future, the progress we continue to make out there. As Bob pointed out a number of different times, the rich medium we have on the broadcast side is the last rich medium in the United States, and that continues to get reinforced with the challenges that broadcast TV has had. So nothing's changed with that, and we’re really pleased with the progress we are making.

Unlike TV, which has had an audience decline, we don't really have the audience issue. Ours is a monetization issue. We've felt and we've invested against it due to the fact that Facebooks and Googles of the world changed how advertisers want to interact with media companies. We have built out that electronic platform and built out the suite of data and analytic services that they need for attribution, and having those pieces in place now allows our broadcast radio to play in that world as well.

Yes, and I just think, around that, just giving any more general comments in terms of other than we continue to expect to make progress. As Bob said, the optimism in terms of going forward about the monetization would be more guidance than we've given.

Thank you. I guess more on the podcast notion. Given that you've said content creators want the greatest reach, and that should provide some leverage to you. I'm wondering what kind of, what is the nature of the financial arrangement that might be most common with your podcast publishers? And sort of on another thought, you brought up using radio to promote the podcast, which makes a lot of sense since you have a lot of unsold inventory traditionally on radio. I'm wondering what share of your spot loads are used to promote podcasts? And how do you account for that, by the way?

Let me take the first piece—if you look at podcasting and the reach we've got, there is probably no one that comes close to the reach we have, which gives us that advantage to any podcast creator. The second piece is in terms of promotion; we promote podcasts in commercial breaks, we promote them in promotional breaks. We even sometimes run podcast episodes on air. Unlike TV, which has fixed inventory, radio has flexible and variable inventory. We can create it on the fly, make more of it, or make less of it. So we don't use podcasts to push out any paid advertising.

Yes, and the other thing I might add is that we probably spent well over $100 million last year on our broadcast inventory promoting our podcast product. Again, our unique ability to create awareness of podcasts out there because you can have the best podcast in the world in terms of types of content, but if no one knows it's there, and you don't drive an audience to it, to find it and discover it, that's what we do. From an accounting standpoint, I'm not going to comment anything specific, but no different than all of our accounting in each of our operating segments. You should assume, and obviously, it's been reviewed by our auditors, is that we just have fair market value accounting between the two segments.

Okay, and maybe one thing about your core broadcast radio operation is there some path to get it back to that pre-COVID revenue level at any point? Or maybe it's been sliding since before COVID occurred? And I guess it would be in terms of ad pricing and with all the competition it faces—what do you think is that ultimate future for that business? Is it monetizing your business in these ancillary ways that will become more and more profitable? Or do you think there are ways that the core business can come back either digitally or otherwise?

I would disagree with you that it was sliding before COVID. I don't think that was the case. If you look back at our revenue, we did see increases in it, and we think, again, going back to some comments we made earlier, we believe that, unlike businesses like newspapers, print, or advertisers supporting TV, where audiences decline, we are seeing a very stable audience here in terms of the reach in radio. For us, it's a matter of how we're monetizing it. The biggest opportunity for us is to be able to put data and analytics on it and to be able to trade electronically. We build out those capabilities now, so that we have matched where the market is, and we think that's been the biggest impediment to robust growth in the broadcast radio business.

Yes, and I think just one thing; I’ll also point everybody to the deck again, if you get a chance to look at it. We put a slide in there that we had last quarter that really highlights that we've got the only audio multi-platform solution. So whether you want to talk about digital, whether you want to talk about broadcast, whether you want to talk about events and sponsorships, and obviously in digital, including podcasts—that capability for advertisers to plan against informed targeted audiences, as Bob articulated, particularly with the Triton acquisition, and then have the ability to deliver results and measure those results. Nobody else has that.

If I can drag it out, but I want to have one more point here, which is if you look at the macro picture—what are the advertising agencies doing and the advertisers? They're all trying to go to a unified buying platform. In the past, they've bought in silos of what's regular, what's on TV, and what's in print and what's on digital alternatives. They’re building platforms where they can plan across media, different kinds of media, to put together the right plan in terms of the right impact, the right reach, and the right cost. Radio, and I'd guess probably outdoor, is below the mean pricing. You'd think that as you begin to plan all these together, that probably everything converges on the mean. That should be advantageous to radio, so sort of a macro analysis.

Thanks, guys.

Next question, and the final question comes from Jim Goss of Barrington Research. Jim, please go ahead.

Thank you. I guess more on the podcast notion. Given that you've said content creators want the greatest reach, and that should provide some leverage to you. I'm wondering what kind of, what is the nature of the financial arrangement that might be most common with your podcast publishers? And sort of on another thought, you brought up using radio to promote the podcast, which makes a lot of sense since you have a lot of unsold inventory traditionally on radio. I'm wondering what share of your spot loads are used to promote podcasts? And how do you account for that, by the way?

Let me take the first piece: if you look at podcasting and the reach we’ve got, there is probably no one that comes close to the reach we have, which gives us that advantage to any podcast creator. As for promotion, we promote podcasts in commercial breaks, we promote them in promotional breaks. We even sometimes run podcast episodes on the air. Unlike TV, which has fixed inventory, radio has flexible and variable inventory. We can create it on the fly, make more of it, or make less of it. So we don’t use podcasts to push out any paid advertising at all.

Yes, and the other thing I might add is that we probably spent well over $100 million last year on our broadcast inventory promoting our podcast product. Again, our unique ability to create awareness of podcasts is key because you can have the best podcast in the world in terms of types of content, but if no one knows it's there, and you don't drive an audience to it to find it and discover it, that's what we do. Regarding accounting—I'm not going to comment anything specific, but it's just as you should assume, and obviously, it has been reviewed by our auditors, we have fair market value accounting between the two segments.

Okay, and maybe one thing about your core broadcast radio operation is there some path to get it back to pre-COVID revenue level at any point? Or maybe it's been sliding since before COVID? I guess in terms of ad pricing and with all the competition it faces, what do you think is the ultimate future for that business? Is it monetizing your business in these ancillary ways that will become more profitable? Or do you think there are some ways that the core business can come back either digitally or otherwise?

I would disagree with you that it was sliding before COVID. I don’t think that was the case. Looking back at our revenue, we saw increases in it, and again, going back to some comments made earlier, unlike businesses like newspapers, print, or advertiser support in TV, where audiences decline, we see a very stable audience here with radio. For us, it's a monetization issue; we've felt and we've invested against it because Facebooks and Googles of the world changed how advertisers want to interact with media companies. We've built out that electronic platform and the suite of data and analytic services to provide them with the needed attribution. Having those pieces in place now allows our broadcast radio to also thrive within that competitive landscape.

Yes, and I think just to add, we continue to expect to make progress and as Bob said, the optimism regarding monetization continues to guide us positively moving forward.

Thank you everybody for joining today and for your questions. We are excited about our progress and what lies ahead for iHeartMedia.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.