iHeartMedia (formerly known as Clear Channel Communications) is a radio broadcaster based in San Antonio, Texas, and one of the largest owners of radio stations in the US.
Clear Channel bought its first radio station in 1972, and would soon come to acquire six stations across Texas and Oklahoma. The deregulation of the radio industry in The '90s note allowed Clear Channel to expand beyond its Texas/Oklahoma base and start developing a national portfolio of stations, buying up over seventy other radio companies as well as numerous radio stations. In 1997, the company entered the billboard industry, and in 1998 they went international and started buying media companies in Britain, China and other countries. In 2005, Clear Channel's billboard and live entertainment divisions were split off into separate companies; the latter became known as Live Nation, and is now the largest concert promoter in America. All three companies remain under the effective control of the Mays family, who had been running Clear Channel from the start. They also owned some TV stations in the past; those have since been sold off and dispersed to other companies. The company changed its name to iHeartMedia in 2008.
iHeart's Premiere Radio Networks is the largest syndication service in the US. Talent broadcast by Premiere included Rush Limbaugh before his death in 2021, with Premiere currently airing Limbaugh's de facto successors Clay Travis and Buck Sexton. iHeart also acts as Fox's radio wing (acting in the same role as Westwood One does for CBS), distributing both Fox News and Fox Sports's news and talk networks for them.
