SiriusXM and iHeart to merge?

Above: satellite radio receivers marked down, in Washington DC in November 2009. The companies had merged a year earlier but the hardware was still separate by the looks of things. This was the first quarter that the company had posted a profit.

• SiriusXM and iHeartMedia are in talks to merge, reports Variety. The news was initially the subject of a set of reports by Bloomberg ($).

  • From a podcast point of view, merging the two would mean one network with 3,422 shows; representing around 207 million downloads+views a month. Spotify would remain bigger, suggests the Podscribe ranker - but that’s only until SiriusXM starts representing YouTube’s audio advertising later this year. Both iHeart and SiriusXM have, of course, significant radio businesses. RadioInsight suggests a merged company will be a juggernaut.
  • SiriusXM obfuscates its podcast revenue by including Pandora in its data, but earned $2.1bn revenue from that business unit in 2025 (25% of overall revenue). iHeart earned $563mn from podcasting in 2025 (14.5% of overall revenue).
  • The deal would force the hand of the UK’s Global (the owner of DAX and Captivate). In 2020, the FCC allowed iHeartMedia to be 100% foreign-owned; and through its investment arm, Global owns 32% of iHeartMedia. On Mar 5 this year, the FCC allowed an application from iHeartMedia that Bahamas-based Global Media & Entertainment Investments Ltd’s shares could be transferred to the UK-based Global Media Investments Limited.

• If Global have a spare £45mn (US $60mn), they could do worse than buy ARN, Australia’s iHeart brand partner: though the legal liabilities might be a little more to the bill. ARN has counter-sued Kyle and Jackie O. - Mumbrella reprint the full court papers (which includes, as I understand it, transcripts of recordings made while the songs were on). The new Aussie ratings came out, too - but caution on reading them, because half of those ratings are from dates when Kyle & Jackie were still on air, so they don’t tell very much of the story. Frankly, this survey is worth ignoring - the real ones to compare will be out June 11.

Do you make podcasts? I’d be really grateful if you’d fill in the fifth annual Podnews Report Card. It’ll only take ten minutes. Thank you.

Classifieds

• In The Quarter Hour with Wade Kingsley: the latest Aussie survey results, Ben Latimer on James Valentine, and SAFM and Nova architect Paul Thompson.

• Supercharge your radio show with world-class prep: the right show prep delivered to you on time, EVERY day, without fail. Grab a £1 week-long trial of Show Prep and stop chasing round looking for things to use on your show, running out of time before the show, and trying to sight-read the newspapers!

• Pladio is a nice-looking radio player app for iPhone, iPad and Mac OS. Some clever bits allow the service to let you bookmark songs you like direct to Apple Music. Works on CarPlay, too. No ads, but there is a premium service with a few more features.

  • Playing with it, one thing that stands out is that the radio station database is a bit of a mess. There’s an open IPtv database and I wonder whether there is an open streaming radio database that would allow people like Pladio to focus on an app, rather than also run a database. Am I missing one?

• Farewell, James Valentine - a radio presenter for ABC Radio Sydney, who died last week following a cancer diagnosis. He was 64. I’d met him a few times - he was friendly and down-to-earth, and he was good at laughing at my jokes, which always makes someone feel good. The Quarter Hour’s Wade Kingsley spoke with the ABC’s Ben Latimer.

• In the UK, Radiocentre has released a full report on the benefits of advertising on multiplatform audio. The report suggests that if you allocate 25% of your total media spend to audio, you get 9% more return on investment.

• AM costs a lot to run. But then - so do mobile networks. Astonishingly, the UK’s Telegraph newspaper is suggesting that access to mobile phone networks in the UK may have to be rationed because electricity is costing more after the war in Iran. It’s all the Labour government’s fault, apparently.

• Sam Litzinger has posted a 29-minute personal history of CBS News Radio, which is going away on May 22. Plenty of stories about Sam’s time in radio news.

• In the UK, Global has integrated its radio stations with Amazon Ads. The integration will include its podcasts later this year.

• This newsletter has a podcast version. Over on Apple Podcasts, you can pay to get rid of the ads, too.

Where I am speaking next

• The Podcast Show, London UK (May 20-21) - I’ll be keynoting at this event, as well as recording a Podnews Weekly Review. And moderating a panel.
• FWD, the Western Canada Media Conference, Kelowna BC (June 3-4) - I’ll be there; details tbc.
• Radiodays Asia, Jakarta Indonesia (Sep) - I’m usually a speaker at this event, and it’s a good one to be at.

Supporters

Thank you to the supporters below, plus Dafydd Furnham, Marty from New Yawk, Gavin Watson, Greg Strassell, Sam Phelps, Richard Hilton, Emma Gibbs, Jocelyn Abbey and James Masterton for being regular supporters.

If you’d like to support my work in any way, you can BuyMeACoffee - become a member to give regularly or just give a one-off coffee, or five. Here’s where to do that.

There’s a podcast version of this newsletter if you prefer that. I’m on Mastodon as @james@bne.social if you’re there too. And my website has more detail about who I am, and what I do, and whether I can help you further.

Selected bits from Radioland are in RadioInfo in Australia, and RAIN News in the US
Lesen Sie außerdem ausgewählte Artikel auf Deutsch in Radioszene