What Happened?
Shares of global media and entertainment company iHeartMedia (NASDAQ:IHRT) fell 4.6% in the afternoon session after the company reported third-quarter results that featured a significant earnings miss, despite revenue beating Wall Street's expectations.
The media and entertainment company posted revenue of $997 million, a 1.1% decline from the previous year, though this figure was ahead of analysts' forecasts. However, the company's loss of $0.43 per share was substantially wider than the consensus estimate, raising concerns about its profitability. Investor sentiment was further dampened by a sharp decline in other key financial metrics. iHeartMedia's free cash flow swung to a negative $32.82 million from a positive $73.35 million in the same quarter last year, and its operating margin turned negative, falling to -11.7% from 7.6% a year ago. While the company's Digital Audio segment showed growth, it was insufficient to offset the overall weak bottom-line performance.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
iHeartMedia’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 71 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 7 days ago when the stock gained 24.1% as reports surfaced that Netflix was in talks to license video podcasts from the media company. According to the reports, the streaming service sought exclusive rights to video versions of iHeartMedia's popular podcasts, which would prevent full episodes from being uploaded to YouTube. Some of the well-known podcasts reportedly involved in the discussions included 'The Breakfast Club' and 'Stuff You Should Know.' The potential deal was seen as a move for Netflix to compete more directly with YouTube in the video podcast space. The news was met with strong investor enthusiasm, pushing the stock to a two-year high during the session.
iHeartMedia is up 117% since the beginning of the year, and at $4.39 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $4.70 from November 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of iHeartMedia’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $430.49.
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