Future of iHeartMedia
CATEGORIES
- Asset Performance
- Innovation assets and pipeline
- Disruption vulnerability
- Company headlines
- Company’s future prospects
DATA ACCESS
iHeartMedia, Inc. (previously known as CC Media Holdings, Inc.) is a US mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (previously known as Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company established in 1972 by Lowry Mays and B. J. "Red" McCombs, and later taken private in 2008 by Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital, LLC through a leveraged buyout. Because of this buyout, Clear Channel Communications, Inc. started to conduct business activities as a wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, Inc. CC Media Holdings, Inc. was renamed iHeartMedia, Inc. on September 16, 2014,; and Clear Channel Communications, Inc., became iHeartCommunications, Inc. iHeartMedia, Inc. focuses on radio broadcasting through division iHeartMedia (sans "Inc." suffix; previously Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, Clear Channel Radio, et al.) and subsidiary iHeartMedia and Entertainment, Inc.
Innovation assets and Pipeline
All company data collected from its 2016 annual report and other public sources. The accuracy of this data and the conclusions derived from them depend on this publicly accessible data. If a data point listed above is discovered to be inaccurate, Quantumrun will make the necessary corrections to this live page.
DISRUPTION VULNERABILITY
Belonging to the media sector means this company will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:
*First off, the cultural shift among Millennials and Gen Zs toward experiences over material goods will make travel, food, leisure, live events and especially media consumption increasingly desirable activities.
*By the late 2020s, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will reach a level of market penetration significant enough for media companies to start shifting sizeable resources into content production for these platforms.
*By the late 2030s, the widespread popularity of VR and AR will shift the public’s media consumption tastes away from voyeuristic storytelling (traditional movies and television shows) to participatory forms of storytelling that immerses the content consumer by allowing them to influence the content they experience—kind of like being an actor in the movie you’re watching.
*The shrinking cost and versatility of artificial intelligence systems, combined with the increasing computational capacity of future quantum computing systems, will drive down the cost of producing higher budget looking content, especially for future VR and AR platforms.
*All media will eventually be delivered primarily through subscription based platforms. Everyone will pay for the content they want to consume.