New York — Leading US radio company iHeartMedia, which runs some of the country’s most popular Top 40 stations, has filed for bankruptcy protection as it struggles to pay $20bn in debt. The Texas-based company said in a statement dated Wednesday that it was confident it had enough cash on hand to stay operational and that it had reached understandings to halve its debt. iHeartMedia runs 850 stations, including 106.7 Lite FM, a New York soft-rock channel which enjoys the highest listener numbers in the US, and KIIS-FM, the premier Top 40 station in Los Angeles. While traditional radio has been shaken by the rise of streaming, iHeartMedia’s immediate problems stem from a messy process a decade ago for a leveraged buyout, which is when management buys a controlling share of a company with outside help. Buyers led by Bain Capital, the investment firm co-founded by former presidential candidate Mitt Romney, agreed in 2006 to $26.7bn funded by big banks for the company then known as Clear...
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