iHeartMedia cuts dozens of on-air jobs after tech memo from Ann Marie Licata

iHeartMedia is cutting dozens of on-air jobs and other positions this week, as part of a programming restructuring that the company frames as a scale-up of technology and “up-and-coming talent.” Billboard viewed an internal memo penned by multiplatform group CEO Ann Marie Licata and chief programming officer and president Tom Poleman, and it makes the logic explicit: iHeart is moving to leverage tech capabilities it has already built, while acknowledging that some colleagues and existing positions will be impacted.

Two months earlier, iHeart had already executed another round of layoffs, including cuts to management and sales jobs in April. Now the programming function is taking the hit, with on-air and staff positions reportedly eliminated across multiple markets, including Florida, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. In Iowa, the Des Moines-based iHeartMedia sports radio station KXnO reportedly laid off a large portion of its on-air talent and staff.

To understand why this matters, you have to look at iHeart’s unusual mix of assets. iHeartMedia owns a large share of Top 40 radio, and it has also spent years building multiplatform distribution, especially podcasts. That creates a pressure-cooker dynamic: radio remains the revenue engine, but the ad market and listener behavior are not behaving like they used to. Since emerging from bankruptcy in 2019, iHeart has faced lingering financial challenges linked to changes in listeners and in advertising demand. Even with radio dominance, the company is still operating in a world where marketers can find cheaper targets and audiences can tune out traditional formats.

The memo’s emphasis on tech is also telling, not because iHeart is abandoning humans, but because it is trying to redesign how staffing works. The company did not elaborate on exactly how technology would supplement operations, but iHeart has publicly said it prioritizes human talent and does not use AI in its programming. That matters for anyone in media watching the tradeoff between automation and authenticity: iHeart is explicitly trying to capture operational efficiencies without flipping the brand from “human-first” to “machine-first.” The memo says iHeart has built new tech capabilities over the last several years to deepen relationships with the listeners and communities who depend on it, and to improve support for its sellers. Then it adds the unavoidable line: “While we will be creating new roles to support our future needs, we also recognize that some colleagues and existing positions will be impacted as part of these changes.”

There is also a capital and budgeting backdrop here, and it is not subtle. iHeartMedia said that ad softness beginning in March, around the start of the Iran war, negatively impacted revenue. At the same time, it expects robust political ads leading up to the midterm elections in November to help it rebound. For decision-makers, that sets up a classic media budgeting problem: you might expect ad cycles to recover, but you still have to fund operations and debt service right now, not later.

iHeart’s financial picture in early 2026 underscores the urgency. The company forecast it anticipated an additional $50 million in cost savings this year, and the layoffs rolled out this week follow the April cuts. Yet iHeart reported negative $114 million in free cash flow in the first quarter, worse than the negative $81 million reported a year earlier. The source attributes the worsening primarily to a $40 million increase in interest expenses related to a debt refinancing in late 2024. Looking forward, iHeart anticipates spending $377 million more this year to service its debt, and iHeart COO and president Rich Bressler said the company is confident it can cover that amount and still meet its target of $200 million in free cash flow this year.

So how does the company justify job cuts when it is also investing in growth? The answer is that iHeart’s podcast and podcast-adjacent expansion is real, but it does not magically erase radio cash-flow volatility. Over the past five years, iHeart’s multiplatform group, which derives 70% of its revenue from radio, has averaged a nearly 24% adjusted EBITDA margin, higher than the 20.3% adjusted EBITDA the company averaged over the past five years overall. That kind of margin strength can bankroll new bets like podcasts, apps, and live events, but it does not make the ad market irrelevant.

Podcasting at iHeart has grown from $50 million five years ago to more than $550 million in 2025. The company forecasts podcasting will grow by mid-20 percentage points this year, pointing to the popularity of video podcasts like The Breakfast Club with Charlamagne, whose hosts frequently mention the series during the hosts’ nationally syndicated iHeart broadcast radio show aired on Power 105.1 in New York. The point for executives is not “podcasts are strong.” The point is that iHeart can be simultaneously strong in one growth channel and still forced to restructure staffing in another core area when the overall revenue environment tightens.

Finally, iHeart’s scale makes this ripple effect more than an internal HR story. With more than 860 stations in 160 markets, iHeartMedia controlled 21.5% of the U.S. radio market, encompassing both music and non-music stations, and 22.5% of the music radio market in 2024, according to an analysis by Citrin Cooperman using the most recent data from broadcast research firm BIA. In May, partner Elon Altman told Billboard that iHeart is widespread in major markets, including the top 50 markets where it has stations in 44 of them, averaging 6.3 stations per market. When a company that large reshapes programming staffing, competitors and adjacent media operators should treat it as a signal: restructuring is likely to be ongoing, and “tech enablement” is becoming a staffing strategy, not just an efficiency initiative.