What Happened?
Shares of global media and entertainment company iHeartMedia (NASDAQ: IHRT) jumped 2.3% in the afternoon session after DeepIntent, a platform for healthcare advertisers, unveiled its HealthFirst™ Audio Package, offering advertisers premium access to digital audio from curated sources including iHeartMedia.
This new offering was designed to help brands connect with patients and medical providers during high-attention, screen-free moments. The package provides healthcare advertisers with a way to reach a large, targeted audience through digital audio at scale. This development could create new revenue opportunities for iHeartMedia by tapping into the healthcare advertising market. In a separate move, the company also expanded its podcast offerings, as actress Crystal Reneé Hayslett's talk series joined The Black Effect Podcast Network, a venture between iHeartMedia and Charlamagne Tha God.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $2.86, up 2.7% from previous close.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
iHeartMedia’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 73 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 12 days ago when the stock gained 4.4% as investors scooped up equities, shaking off the initial concerns inferred from the Fed's dot plot, with tech stocks leading the charge.
As a reminder, the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points the previous day and signaled that more reductions could come before year-end and beyond. Initially when the cut was announced and Fed Chair Powell held his press conference, there was a pullback in the market as the Fed's "dot plot" revealed that only one cut was likely for 2026. This was below the three cuts that had been priced into the markets. This was the first interest rate cut of 2025, a move investors had widely anticipated. In response to the decision, stocks rose significantly, positioning major indexes like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to open at record levels.
The Fed's decision was influenced by signs of a weakening labor market. Lower interest rates are generally seen as positive for stocks because they reduce borrowing costs for businesses and make fixed-income investments like bonds less attractive by comparison, driving capital into the equity market. While Fed Chair Powell noted the path forward has risks, the prospect of looser monetary policy has fueled optimism on Wall Street.
iHeartMedia is up 41.6% since the beginning of the year, and at $2.86 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $3.11 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of iHeartMedia’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $352.28.
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