Bloomberg says iHeartMedia is shopping around part—or maybe all—of its podcast division. iHeart says that's not true. So who do you believe?

Here's what happened. Bloomberg ran a paid article this week claiming iHeart has been in talks with an investment bank about selling off its podcasting arm. iHeart's response was quick and blunt: "no plan to sell our podcasting business."

That's a pretty clean denial. But the timing is interesting.

This is a part of the company that's actually doing well. Podcasting brought in $174 million in revenue last quarter for iHeart—up 24.6% year-over-year. That's not a struggling unit looking for a lifeline. That's a growth engine. Why would you sell the thing that's working?

CEO Bob Pittman gave a clue during this week's earnings call. He said iHeart plans to split its podcast business out from its Digital Audio Group and report them as separate segments going forward. The idea is to help investors see exactly what the podcast side is worth on its own.

That's not usually what you do right before you sell something. You don't carve out a clean, separate view of an asset's value unless you want people to appreciate it—or unless you're getting it ready to show to a buyer. One industry insider summed it up to Podnews with a shrug: "but, where there's smoke…"

Meanwhile, iHeart's stock got a small bump on the sale rumor. Maybe that tells you something. Podcast Business Journal reports iHeart shares have actually lost two-thirds of their value this week overall. So a modest rally on sale talk, inside a much bigger slide—draw your own conclusions.

This isn't the first swirl of M&A chatter around iHeart this year either. Earlier in 2025, Bloomberg reported the company was in merger talks with SiriusXM. Nothing came of it publicly. Maybe this is just how a big audio company behaves when its stock is under pressure—let rumors circulate, see what sticks, watch the share price react.

I find this stuff fascinating, honestly. Not because I own iHeart stock—I don't—but because it's a reminder that the businesses behind the shows we listen to are a lot messier than the final product sounds. You hit play on a podcast, you hear a clean, polished story. Behind it, there's a company juggling investors, rumors, denials, and a stock price that moves whether or not anyone tells the truth that week.

Quick Hits From the Podcast World

A few other things caught my eye while I was down this rabbit hole.

Goalhanger's fiction thriller Bear Hunt—the "British Bourne" about a fictional mission to take out the Russian president—just crossed 1 million downloads and is getting a second season. Proof that scripted audio fiction still has an audience hungry for it.

Former Ringer producer Bobby Wagner wrote a piece reflecting on leaving podcast production because video was taking over—only to end up making a video podcast anyway. Feels like the whole industry's story in one sentence.

Acast rolled out a new analytics dashboard giving creators demographic data and de-duplicated audience numbers across audio, video, and social. Useful if you're trying to actually understand who's listening, not just how many.

The Astra Podcast Awards named Rob Lowe's Team Coco show Literally! podcast of the year. And a company called Vocial is betting that "micropodcasting" could be the next version of social media—bringing back the social part of social media through short audio.

Raccoon Media Group took a majority stake in outdoor-culture show The Rock Fight, with host Colin True staying on with promised editorial independence.

And Audrina Patridge is heading back into podcasting with a video-first show called Say More.

So what's the lesson in all this? Follow the money, not the headline. iHeart says no sale. The numbers say the podcast side is thriving. The restructuring says they want investors to see its real value. Make of that what you will—I'll be watching to see what comes next.

Source: Podnews

Catch up on our earlier post: Meet Charles Mayfield, the Podcast Network Boss Who Might Not Exist