Company: IHETW
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001400891-25-000009
Chunk: 49

Company: iHeartMedia, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-27
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 49
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 could be substantial, and we cannot assure you that we will continue to have the resources to acquire new technologies or to introduce new services to compete with other new technologies or services, or that our investments in new technologies or services will provide the desired returns. Other companies employing new technologies or services could more successfully implement such new technologies or services or otherwise increase competition with our businesses and make our products less competitive in the marketplace.

15

Our business is dependent upon the performance of on-air talent, program hosts, and acquisition of programming. 

We employ or independently contract with many on-air personalities and hosts of radio programs, podcasts and other audio platforms and contract for certain programming, including podcasts, with significant loyal audiences. Although we have entered into long-term agreements with some of our key talent and programming to protect our interests in those relationships, we can give no assurance that all or any of these persons or programs will remain with us, will retain their audiences or will continue to be profitable. Competition for talent and programming is intense and many of these individuals and programs are under no legal obligation to remain with us. Our competitors may choose to extend offers to any talent or programs on terms that we may be unwilling to meet. Furthermore, the popularity and audience loyalty of our key talent and programs are highly sensitive to rapidly changing public tastes. A loss of such popularity or audience loyalty is beyond our control and could have a material adverse effect on our ability to attract local and/or national advertisers and on our revenue and/or listenership and could result in increased expenses. Our investments in talent and programming have been and may continue to be significant and involve complex negotiations with numerous third parties. These costs may not be recouped and higher costs may lead to decreased profitability or potential write-downs.

Emerging industry trends may adversely impact our ability to generate revenue from our digital advertising inventory and materially adversely affect our business, operations, and financial condition.

There are no uniform methods by which our advertiser clients measure advertising effectiveness. As a result, new methods are regularly created and used by different advertiser clients. We cannot integrate with all possible technological standards to measure advertising effectiveness and there is no guarantee that the standards with which we choose to integrate will be the standards ultimately selected by the majority of our advertiser clients. There is also no guarantee that such standards will accurately reflect the true effectiveness of our advertising. Finally, as discussed in “Compliance with ever evolving regulations, third-party restrictions, and consumer concerns or litigation regarding data privacy and data protection involves significant expenditure and resources, and any failure by us or our vendors