Earnings Call Transcript - IHRT Q2 2020

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the iHeartMedia Q2 2020 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference to your speaker today, Kareem Chin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Kareem Chin, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us on our second quarter 2020 earnings call. Joining me for today’s discussion are Bob Pittman, our Chairman and CEO; and Rich Bressler, the 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 accompanying investor presentation that you can follow along with our remarks. Before we begin, let me quickly cover the Safe Harbor language 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 that 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. In addition, as noted in our March 26, 2020 press release, due to the uncertainty surrounding the impact of COVID-19, we reiterate that the company will not be providing full year 2020 guidance on this call. 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 presentation available on our website. And now I’ll turn the call over to Bob.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

Thanks, Kareem, and good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our second quarter 2020 earnings conference call. The challenges that we and most of the world have faced since March due to COVID-19 were unprecedented and had a severe negative impact on our revenue through the sudden and dramatic decline in advertising demand in the quarter. Before Rich and I get into a discussion of the specifics of the second quarter and even into the just completed month of July, there are four points we want to highlight. First, broadcast radio remains the number one reach medium in the U.S., and our other audio platforms are also strong with consumers. By consumer reach, we’re the number one audio company in America by a wide margin. The consumer reach of broadcast radio during the pandemic lockdown still exceeds both TV and digital. The only direct measurement of our listening on our digital platforms showed an overall increase year-over-year as well as an almost 20% increase on home CE devices, including smart TVs, gaming platforms and smart speakers. Our podcast listening was also up with a 62% increase in downloads year-over-year for Q2. We believe this resilience in radio listening is further proof that the consumer depends on radio in times of need for both information and companionship that’s at the core of the radio experience and is the inherent strength of broadcast radio as a consumer medium. We believe the strength of our podcast listening is an indication that podcasting is providing a similar benefit, and it’s an extension of the radio listening experience. So it’s no surprise that the two largest podcast publishers, iHeart and NPR, are both major broadcast radio companies, and we both have a 2:1 lead over the next largest publisher. Second, our revenue suffered with a big drop in April, but it’s been showing improvement in each successive month, including the just closed July. It’s still too early to predict the slope of the recovery with any certainty, but we’re confident we have ample liquidity even if the recoveries are slow and extending through 2021. Third, it’s worthwhile to note that our non-broadcast consumer revenue platforms, networks, smart audio programmatic, digital and podcasting, the ones that have been the focus of our company’s efforts and investments, had meaningfully better revenue performance than our broadcast revenue. We believe this is strong validation of our multi-platform strategy, investments and successes. Fourth and finally, we responded quickly to partially mitigate the impact of the sharp revenue declines, demonstrating flexibility even in our fixed cost structure. We have made deep cuts before the pandemic, deeper cuts at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown and even more after it became apparent this downturn was going to last longer than originally expected. Many of these are permanent cuts, and we’re evaluating additional permanent cuts based on how we expect to operate for the remainder of the pandemic and for our new normal thereafter. That includes an expected permanent reduction in real estate cost, a substantial reduction of travel and entertainment expenses, the elimination of the use of many outside consultants, and the development of new technology-driven processes and operations to drive additional efficiencies. But before we get into more detail, I want to take just a moment to soothe our employees. This is a tough time for everybody, and our employees have risen to the occasion to keep the company moving forward during this period. They’ve never worked harder. They’re more creative and innovative. They’ve never had to adapt so quickly to a major disruption, in this case, moving from an office to working from home. Many of them have kids and have had to deal with issues like school and childcare and many other factors. But in spite of all that, they continue to make progress on key initiatives, build out new ideas, serve our communities and service our clients. It’s frustrating for them, as it is for Rich and me and all of you who are stakeholders in this company because they don’t see this translate into financial success right now. However, as we look to the future, as we begin to see an upturn and look past this period, we know all the work they’re doing now is setting the stage for accelerated growth. And with that, I’d like to provide some real-time color around what we’re seeing in our business. The challenges we face from COVID-19 resulted in a decline in total company revenue of approximately 47% and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $29.3 million in the second quarter. As I said, we have seen sequential improvement in the rate of revenue declines of each month since April, the low point, all the way through July. And Q3 pacing is showing meaningful improvement over Q2. However, even as the revenue trajectory improves each month, the speed of the return in advertising revenue is still uncertain. So we’re prepared for a wide range of possibilities, even including a more drawn-out recovery scenario. And as Rich will discuss in detail, we have proactively taken steps to fortify our balance sheet and liquidity. We placed a premium on having a resilient capital structure with ample liquidity. While this financial performance has been disappointing, there are some bright spots. As I mentioned earlier, our broadcast radio business was most hard hit with COVID, with year-over-year revenue down 57% in the quarter. However, the other areas that we’ve chosen for strategic investments to drive growth, diversify our revenue base and give us a multi-platform offering, networks, smart audio programmatic, digital and podcasting, are proving to be the right ones. In contrast to broadcast, networks is down 38.4%; smart audio down 28%; and digital is up 2.4%, driven by podcasting, which is up over 100%. Our relationship with consumers is stronger than ever, both because of our deep connection to the communities we serve and because we have prioritized being everywhere consumers want to find us with the products and services they expect. Today, in addition to our AM/FM platforms, consumers can find us on over 2,000 devices and 250 platforms, from PCs and smartphones to smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home, smart TVs, Sonos, Roku, gaming consoles, and even Apple TV. We were the first streaming audio service on the Comcast Xfinity X1 box. Our leadership position on devices has ensured that we have more touch points than ever with the consumers since they shifted their lives more into the home in late March, giving us a uniquely strong position to participate in this increase at-home listening. From a consumer engagement perspective, since the pandemic began, listening on the web is up 19%; gaming consoles up 25%; and smart TVs are up 13%. Even in July, as things showed signs of returning closer to normal, digital listening on home devices is still up. Our hope and expectation is that after patterns return to pre-COVID levels, we’ll continue to benefit from consumers learning to find and use our products on additional in-home devices. Our strongest-performing new business is podcasting. We have built iHeart into the number one commercial podcast publisher with a goal of leadership in listeners, revenue, and earnings. This strength in podcasting highlights how the decisions we have made are paying off. Today, iHeart is the number one commercial podcast company in America. Our podcast division, part of our digital business, continues to grow at a rapid pace with revenue outstripping even audience growth. With almost 500 premium titles and 225 million downloads a month, we partnered with the best creators in the world, distribute their content to the largest audience possible, backed up by the massive marketing power of our broadcast radio assets, which gives us a huge amplifier for every new podcast title we release, and then we monetize it in the hands of the largest and best audio sales team in America. As you try to understand the disparate podcasting models, let me explain our view of the current landscape. There are really two different approaches out there: One, paywalling exclusive content on a single app. Good for the app, but not good for the listeners because they now have to pay for content that was previously free. Not good for creators because their audience and impact will be small, and not good for sponsors because there is insufficient scale in exclusive distribution. Ours is the opposite model and, we think, a better model. Wide distribution so listeners find the content they want, where they want. Creators build the largest audience size possible, and sponsors can scale their messages across these large audiences. Looking at the listening as measured by Podtrac and the associated revenue and earnings, this latter strategy is working. We have yet to see an example of success anyone has had with the paywalling strategy in podcasting. As I mentioned earlier, our new platforms we’ve built and invested in have performed better than our broadcast platform, validating our multi-platform strategy. We even reimagined our events business. Even though it’s down dramatically, we’ve been able to build successful virtual events, including the iHeartRadio Living Room Concert For America on Fox hosted by Elton John, Living Room Concerts with State Farm, and Commencement: Speeches For The Class Of 2020, which were delivered on both podcasting and over our 850 radio stations nationwide. This has allowed us to generate sponsorship revenue even though we had to forgo the lower margin ticketing revenue from physical events. As a company, we innovate. In times like this, we can’t forget that we must continue to follow the consumer and build products and services that keep us in the forefront of media. We’ve made significant investments in our podcasting business, seen record growth, and the same with our iHeartRadio app. We even developed a completely new broadcast and digital network, BIN: Black Information Network, which is the first and only 24/7 national and local all-news audio service dedicated to providing a trusted source of continual news coverage with a black voice and perspective and is focused on service to the black community and providing an information window for those outside the community to help foster communication, accountability and a deeper understanding. All of this is enabled by the fact that we have a reach larger than any other media company in America. We are the number one audio company in America by reach, and we have leading engagement as well. In fact, our listeners spend 30 minutes a day with us, more than Google at 27 minutes per day and Facebook at 18 minutes per day. We serve our communities first and foremost. From that, we derive our power. We track consumer sentiment on a continuing basis, which allows us to respond quickly to any sudden change. For example, during the protests in support of racial and social justice in communities across America, we responded quickly as a company to foster understanding that our personality is taking a leading role in the discussions critical to bringing the country together. Over time, being there for consumers, communities, and society makes us even more important to consumers going forward. As we navigate the financial impact that the pandemic has had on our business, we’re working hard to ensure iHeart is positioned to capitalize on the ongoing recovery in the ad market. We’re already taking $250 million out of operating expenses in 2020, with further savings from variable costs. We’re taking a hard, fresh look at our cost structure to understand what we’ve learned from this period. This review can have a positive and lasting impact on the operational costs of our company, from the utilization of real estate to our adoption of technology to provide us with more efficiency and effectiveness in our operations. This will strengthen our operating margin profile as the economy recovers. This crisis has challenged us to think opportunistically about our operations, and there will be more to come on this front as we develop new ideas and practices. Rich will take you through the details of our Q2 performance, but I wanted to leave you with these points: We wish we had better news on the financial front. However, we are encouraged that revenue is improving sequentially and expect that trend to continue into the fall and the end of the year. The downturn has lasted longer, and the pandemic has been more persistent than most predicted. Although it’s been hard, we are seeing a more normal advertising demand start to come back. The current dislocation between our listening and revenue is a temporary state, as we know that advertising will eventually reflect consumer usage and demand, and we do have strong consumer demand. We continue to be disciplined about spending and reduce costs to mitigate as much of the revenue impact as we can. Finally, we remain extremely focused on ensuring that we have ample liquidity to ride out this downturn and continue to fuel the higher growth parts of our business. And with that, I’ll turn it over to Rich.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Thanks, Bob. As you’re all aware, our second quarter results reflect a severe impact that COVID has had on advertising demand. The pandemic caused a significant economic downturn, which in April resulted in the steepest year-over-year revenue declines we have witnessed, with modest sequential improvement in each of the months that followed as reopenings in certain markets were delayed due to resurgent COVID cases and protests related to civil unrest in many parts of the country. As we look ahead, it’s important to remember the power of audio before COVID began, when we were in a healthy business environment. That power translated into the strong financial results that we saw in our business after we emerged from our restructuring in May of last year, all the way through February of this year before our momentum was interrupted. While we can’t predict how fast or what shape the economic return will take, we know that it will come back from this period of dislocation. We will need the right set of products, services, and users of those services to take full advantage of it in ways that we were prepared to in the past. As Bob mentioned, our strategy over the last several years has focused on developing and investing in multiple platforms, sales infrastructure, and data and analytics capabilities to continually strengthen our position as the number one audio company in the United States by reach. We believe that the diversified offering we have today, combined with our focus on cost and capital structure management, enables our business to be more resilient during this downturn and positions us favorably to capitalize on the continuing advertising recovery. In terms of our second quarter results, if you turn to Slide 6 of our investor deck, on a reported basis, our consolidated revenue decreased by 46.6% over the prior year period. Direct operating expenses decreased by 15.9%, driven primarily by cost reductions associated with our modernization initiatives as well as those taken in response to COVID-19. In addition, variable operating expenses, including music license and performance royalty fees, decreased in relation to lower revenue recognized during the period. Variable expenses related to events also decreased as a result of the postponement or cancellation of physical events. SG&A decreased by 19%, driven by cost reduction initiatives along with lower sales commissions, which were impacted by the decrease in revenue. Trade and barter expenses also decreased. The decrease in SG&A expenses was partially offset by higher bad debt expense. Corporate expenses decreased by 36.1% during the second quarter compared to the prior year quarter as a result of lower employee compensation, including variable incentive expenses and employee benefits resulting from expense reduction initiatives. Our GAAP operating loss of $159.1 million for the second quarter compared to the GAAP operating income of $181.6 million in the prior year quarter, and the year-over-year decline in adjusted EBITDA from $262.9 million to a loss of $29.3 million were driven by lower revenue. Turning to Slide 8. I will provide additional color on the performance of our revenue streams. In our broadcast business, revenue declined by 56.5% on a reported basis, while networks declined by 38.4% year-over-year. Our digital revenue stream grew by 2.4% driven by continued growth in podcasting, which increased by 102.7% year-over-year. Audio and media services declined by 32.9% on a reported basis and by 36.3%, excluding the impact of political revenue. Sponsorship and event revenues decreased by $27.6 million compared to the prior year period, primarily as a result of the postponement or cancellation of physical events. Turning back to our consolidated results and looking at the items below the line, interest expense increased by $12.7 million compared to the same period of 2019, as a result of the interest incurred on our new debt issued upon our emergence from Chapter 11 on May 1, 2019. On Slide 11, there is a summary of our balance sheet. At quarter end, we had approximately $5.3 billion of net debt outstanding, which includes a cash balance of approximately $517.7 million. Despite what has been the most challenging quarter we could imagine, our free cash flow used in continuing operations was only a negative $6.5 million. As a reminder, we took early actions to focus on aggressive cost management and maximizing liquidity to be prepared for a potential protracted recovery. In a quarter like this, the fact that we used only $6.5 million is one more proof point of our company’s strong free cash flow characteristics. As Bob noted, we continue to focus on maximizing liquidity and strengthening our capital structure during this period of uncertainty. In July, we completed an amendment to our credit facility to issue $450 million of incremental term loan. The proceeds were used to repay the remaining balance outstanding under our ABL facility of $235 million, with the balance going to cash on our balance sheet. Adjusted for that amendment, our cash balance as of June 30, 2020, was approximately $708 million. Following the repayment of the balance on our ABL facility, we had total available liquidity of approximately $868 million. The terms of our debt structure include no material maintenance covenants and there are no material debt maturities prior to 2026, providing significant structural resilience in the current uncertain macro environment. As we look forward to the rest of 2020, we expect that revenue will remain challenged given the impact that COVID-19 continues to have on the macroeconomic and advertising environment. However, we are cautiously optimistic, and we have seen an improvement in the rate of year-over-year revenue declines in each month since the 50% decline in April, with May, June and July declining 49%, 41%, and 27%, respectively. While we will not be providing pacing for Q3 or full year guidance, we can tell you that Q3 is shaping up to be materially better than Q2, and we remind you that the bulk of political advertising is placed in Q3 and Q4. I also want to provide an update on the modernization and cost-saving initiatives that we announced earlier in the year. Together, these initiatives remain on track to deliver the expected $250 million of expense savings in 2020. We expect our modernization initiatives to deliver $100 million of annualized run rate savings by mid-2021. In addition to those savings, we are continuing to evaluate our cost structure to identify efficiencies of lasting benefits to the company and will drive stronger margin growth as the economy recovers. Our focus will include continued optimization of our real estate footprint and the adoption of technology solutions to drive increased efficiency and effectiveness in our operations. We will provide more details on that amount and timing of those savings later in the year. Our full-year capital expenditures guidance remains unchanged at approximately $75 million to $95 million. We continue to expect minimal cash taxes as certain provisions of the CARES Act should partially offset the negative impact that COVID-19 is having on our 2020 free cash flow. The provisions of the act that pertain to us result in our ability to deduct 100% of our 2020 interest expense as well as a portion of interest from prior years that was disallowed, and the deferral and potential avoidance of certain credits we may qualify for of 2020 payroll tax payments. In wrapping up, we believe that our previously announced modernization initiatives and cost-saving actions, in combination with our resilient capital structure, will provide us both financial flexibility and ample liquidity to operate effectively even in an extended period of economic weakness. While we cannot predict the shape or timing of the recovery in advertising demand, we are confident in our ability to drive shareholder value through operational discipline and continued investment in the areas of our businesses that will position us for growth as advertising demand continues to return. Again, we would like to thank our employees who have been committed to serving our listeners, our communities, and our business partners during this challenging time. We appreciate you all joining our second quarter earnings call. We will now turn it over to the operator to take your questions.

Operator, Operator

Our first question comes from Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Steven Cahall, Analyst

Thanks. Rich, a couple for you. And then Bob, I’ve got a podcasting question. Rich, maybe just how should we think about being EBITDA or free cash flow positive in the second half of the year based on all the proactive cost reductions that you’ve taken, which I think you probably didn’t get a lot of the benefits of in the second quarter? And maybe included in that, can you give us an indication as to what you think the cash interest is going to look like in the back half of the year?

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Sure. Thanks, Steven. Good morning, everybody. I’m not going to make any specific comments about cash flow for the second half of the year because I think that would be tantamount to giving guidance, quite frankly, out there. But if you kind of think about – and I think what’s really great about this business – and when Bob articulated in his opening remarks, what’s happening on an operating basis, I don’t think any of us should lose sight that, considering the headwinds we have on revenue, we declined 47% on revenue, our EBITDA was down a little over $260 million or $270 million for Q2. I think what points to the cash flow part of the business is we only used $6.77 million on free cash flow, which I think is a pretty good free cash flow performance considering the challenges. So I would just point to that without giving any specific guidance for the rest of the year, and the fact that we’re continuing to aggressively manage capital expenditures. Our guidance is of $75 million to $95 million, the low working capital. And the fact that we effectively have zero cash taxes this year, the largest part of which is driven by the cash tax savings for interest deductions that we get as a result of the CARES Act, and also our ability to defer employee taxes as a result of the CARES Act.

Steven Cahall, Analyst

And cash interest?

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Well, look, our weighted average cost of debt at June 30 is about 5.3% overall. We’ve got about $5.8 billion of total debt. I think if you look at the investor deck we break it down kind of piece by piece. You guys can compute the number there.

Steven Cahall, Analyst

Great. And then on capital structure, I mean we’ve seen some peers that have been impacted by COVID look at sort of strategic partners for preferred types of investments. You guys have a lot of liquidity runway. So I’m just wondering how you think about the capital structure and whether you think this is an opportune time to sort of talk to strategic partners for anything like that. Or do you just really like the liquidity runway that you have?

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Well, taking the last part of your question first. I think we’ve done a nice job in terms of the capital structure liquidity runway. As our opening remarks pointed out, whatever your time period of the recovery, we’ve got a capital structure that’s built to endure those periods of time. The second quarter is instructive in a positive way about the free cash flow and our ability to continue to weather any downturn in the capital structure there. We have one objective here, which is to drive value for stakeholders: the equity value of this company. We continue to evaluate it, but we have the benefit of having a capital structure and a liquidity position that we don’t need to do anything unless we think it’s going to be value-accretive for our stakeholders.

Steven Cahall, Analyst

Yes, thanks. And then maybe just, Bob, one on podcasting. I feel like we’d be remiss not to talk about the competitive dynamics with Spotify. How do you think about that relationship? Would you sell them exclusive content at the right price? Will you continue to make your content available on all platforms, including Spotify? How do we just think about those competitive dynamics?

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

Yes. Look, I’ve mentioned before that there are really two models for podcasting. Ours is a distributed content model. We want our content available anywhere a consumer might be to make it easy for them to consume it. We would not sell our products exclusively. We think it – one, it limits the size of the audience, and for creators, most creators want to create a hit podcast. I guess there’s some amount of money at which they said they’d rather have the money than create a hit podcast, but I think that’s the goal. The more you attract, the bigger the audience you can offer them. Advertisers seek the biggest audience possible. If you go behind a paywall, you can justify it as helping to build some other service, but we’ve yet to see success with that anywhere. We like our strategy, and we’re pleased with the growth we’ve had in podcasting. We began with about 5 million unique users, and after acquiring Stuff Media, we combined for about 10 million. We've more than doubled that. We built most of the audience. One of our advantages is using all our broadcasting reach to build podcasts. We’ve had great success with that and continue to do so in innovative ways. So we think we’re in the right place with the right model. We’re the only model that’s proven it can generate real profits and growth.

Steven Cahall, Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Zack Silver of B. Riley. Your line is open.

Zack Silver, Analyst

Hi, great. Thanks for taking the question. The first one, I know you said that you were not going to talk about forward guidance, but you did give the revenue for July, how that was pacing. I just wanted to ask if you could point specifically to what’s driving the recovery, both in terms of the revenue lines and the advertiser categories.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

I’ll let Rich jump in on that. But I think we are seeing some demand returning in advertising demand, which I think is the primary driver of it. When the pandemic began, advertisers pulled back and said, 'Let’s wait and see.' They’re beginning to figure out where it’s going, what’s working, and where they want to invest. One encouraging aspect is that almost every business now has to consider reopening and selling themselves again. Radio has historically been the medium for any opening because we reach consumers quickly. We are becoming the go-to source in times like this, especially as brands redefine themselves.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Yes, and just to add on to that point, Zack. Overall, placements are increasing, and cancellations are decreasing, and we’ve seen that since the start of the pandemic. National for us took a bigger hit initially, but that is beginning to reverse. As bigger advertisers start returning to the marketplace, it’s been interesting to see CEOs come to the conclusion that they need to learn how to navigate their companies in this new environment. Specific categories that have done better include CPG, home improvement, insurance, financial services, and medical healthcare. Each of these has performed better than entertainment, although we’ve seen success with streaming services. All these take advantage of our improved capabilities, and podcasting continues to lead the pack.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

I would also add that within advertising, we're seeing two trends emerging. Advertisers either want a big idea or they’re looking for performance. They want to maximize the value of their advertising spend like never before. Our smart audio capabilities paired with data analytics are increasingly attractive to advertisers. Historically, radio delivered similar impacts as TV at one-third the price per person reach, so we offer efficiency that is becoming increasingly important.

Zack Silver, Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. And then one more if I could, just around the strategy of – clearly, there’s good demand for advertising on podcasts. One of the things that you guys have talked about before is using podcasts to draw more advertisers into broadcast radio. What impact has the current state of affairs had on that strategy?

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

We haven’t announced anything specific on that, but people are interested in podcasting. They should be interested in radio because it’s very much the equivalent of radio on demand. Successful podcasts are host-driven, and listeners enjoy that companionship. We treat podcasting and radio as one experience expressed differently. It provides a unique advantage in driving advertisers. We’ve had many successes there and expect that to continue.

Zack Silver, Analyst

Got it. Thank you, both.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

Thanks, Zack.

Operator, Operator

Your next question comes from Sebastiano Petti of JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Sebastiano Petti, Analyst

Hi, thanks. Rich, you touched upon the decline in EBITDA being a little bit better than the revenue decline, which demonstrates a lot of the cost savings initiatives you have in place. Can you provide an update towards the $200 million run rate savings by the end of the year? Where are you on that today?

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

We are on track for our cost savings initiatives, including the $250 million expected this year. $100 million on an annualized run rate savings is expected by mid-2021. We will also continue to evaluate our cost structure to identify efficiencies. An important focus will be on real estate and technology solutions that drive efficiency as the economy recovers. However, I won’t provide specific details beyond saying we are on track.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

As managers, we need to constantly learn and innovate. This disaster has made us examine how we operate and discover new ways that we can improve our business, such as working from home. What we have learned will create positive financial impacts moving forward.

Sebastiano Petti, Analyst

That’s great. One last question: If you could unpack some of the moving parts within the digital bucket? Podcasting is up 103% year-over-year, but there has been sequential deceleration overall in the digital category.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

If you pulled podcasting out, overall digital would be down meaningfully. I would estimate it down significantly, maybe high single digits or double digits without podcasting. Still, we feel very good about how we are performing versus other advertising businesses in America.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

We offer a suite of digital services, including streaming through the iHeartRadio app. Our services are available on various devices. By expanding our capabilities, we expect more listening as people use these new devices at home.

Operator, Operator

Your final question comes from Jim Goss of Barrington Research. Your line is open.

Jim Goss, Analyst

Thanks. iHeart has a different mix of radio revenues than the industry. If you consider that, I imagine that traditional strength might have hurt you a little bit more in these last several months. I wondered if you could go through the decline numbers and talk about how the mix of revenue might have affected those.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

It’s true that we have a unique structure in being able to deliver broadcast real national reach. Advertisers have pulled back as they navigate their messages through this pandemic and other events, like recent protests. Nonetheless, there have been signs of normalization as brands are beginning to open up and communicate their offerings.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

The recovery will occur at varying rates across different markets rather than all at once. Our presence across 850 radio stations in 150 markets positions us to reach local consumers and advertisers with tailored messages better than anyone else in this situation. We can find solutions in local markets effectively.

Jim Goss, Analyst

Okay. And one other thing in terms of the analysis of your cost structure and expense structure. Are you able to effectively lower the breakeven plan such that your EBITDA margin could be higher?

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

I won’t provide any specific comments on that. However, I can affirm we are focused on improving both operating margins and leveraging our costs. That will deliver value and shareholder growth over time as we pursue our initiatives.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

Yes, the cost savings are going to be permanent, and the costs we’ve been looking to reduce will be maintained. There are changes we are learning now that we won’t reverse.

Jim Goss, Analyst

All right. Well, thanks very much.

Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO

Great, thank you.

Operator, Operator

That was our final question. I will now return the call to our presenters.

Rich Bressler, President, COO and CFO

On behalf of Bob and myself and, quite frankly, the entire employee base of iHeart, which has been with us every step of the way, really just thank everybody for your support. Thank you for taking the time today to listen to the iHeart story. Thank you in advance for your continued support.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.