
Who Owns iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, Inc. 🐔🐔
Capitulation Rank: Compromising
Category: Broadcasting & Entertainment
Market Cap: $259.8 million

Chairman & CEO Bob Pittman
On its corporate website, iHeartMedia claims to have a “greater reach than any other media company in the U.S.” It’s a boast that’s hard to dispute: With a radio-station network of some 860 outlets, the conglomerate has the broadcast capacity to reach 9 out of 10 Americans.
Many media-industry watchers know iHeartMedia by its former name, Clear Channel Communications, a network built by conservative businessman Lowry Mays, who famously said the company was “not in the business of providing news and information. … We’re simply in the business of selling our customers’ products.” Under Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman, those “products” include right-wing talk-radio programs like The Sean Hannity Show, The Glenn Beck Program and Verdict with Ted Cruz, which are rife with the sort of disinformation that fuels President Trump’s frequent social-media rants. iHeartMedia has also partnered with Fox News Radio to air the conservative news outlet’s spin across more than a hundred stations.
In 2025, iHeartMedia’s trade organization — the National Association of Broadcasters — is aggressively lobbying the Trump-era Federal Communications Commission to eliminate ownership caps that prevent monopolies among large broadcast groups. In Trump’s transactional world, gaining such policy favors from government regulators comes with political conditions.
- What It Owns:
iHeartMedia owns and operates a wide variety of audio-related outlets, primarily focusing on radio broadcasting and digital-audio platforms. These include some 860 AM/FM radio stations across 160 markets in the United States, as well as the digital platform iHeartRadio, which offers on-demand music, podcasts and livestreaming. It also operates several national radio networks — including 24/7 News Source, Black Information Network, Fan Radio Network, iHeart Radio News Network, Premiere Networks and Total Traffic & Weather Network. iHeart also sells outdoor advertising and organizes and promotes live music events and concerts across the country.
- Money & Influence Game:
iHeartMedia paid lobbyists $4,470,000 in 2024 and made $1,083,997 in contributions to political candidates (2024 cycle). In 2022, one of its program hosts, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, was investigated for receiving from the broadcaster an in-kind marketing and promotion “gift potentially worth millions of dollars.” Cruz’s Super PAC also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from the radio giant. (SOURCE: Center for Responsive Politics)