The FCC has approved iHeartMedia’s petition to expand its foreign ownership authorization, clearing the way for new investors tied to the United Kingdom’s largest commercial radio company, while keeping the broadcaster’s aggregate foreign ownership cap unchanged.
The Media Bureau’s Audio Division issued the Declaratory Ruling on July 7, granting a petition iHeart first filed in May 2025.
The relationship at the center of the ruling goes back further than this petition. UK investor Michael Tabor first took an 8.8% stake in iHeart for roughly $117 million in February 2021 through his Honeycomb Investments, made possible once the FCC’s 2020 ruling authorized up to 100% aggregate foreign investment in iHeart and approved the PIMCO Group to hold up to 32.99% of equity and 19.99% of voting interests. Weeks later, Tabor’s investment vehicle, Global Media & Entertainment Investments, asked the FCC to let it grow that position as high as 49.99%; the Commission ultimately capped GMEI’s approved stake at a non-controlling 14.99% later that year.
This latest petition stemmed from GMEI’s trustees seeking to transfer some or all of that interest to a sibling entity, Global Media Investments, a UK company connected to Global, the commercial radio group Tabor’s family owns and operates in the UK.
The ruling grants specific approval for GMI and several additional UK-based individuals and entities tied to Global’s ownership structure, including Michael Tabor’s son, Ashley Tabor-King, who serves as Founder and Executive President of both Global and GMI, along with Global Radio Group, Global Media & Entertainment Worldwide, and UK citizens Sebastian Enser-Wight, Harriet Giepmans, Stephen Miron, Simon Pitts, and Mark Richford.
The combined foreign interest held by GMEI and GMI still cannot exceed 14.99%, unchanged from the prior approval.
No comments were filed in response to the FCC’s public notice on the petition, and the Bureau opted not to formally refer the matter to Executive Branch national security reviewers. That decision follows the Department of Justice’s informal signal, first reported by Radio Ink in March, that its Team Telecom committee saw no need for a full referral, guidance the DOJ later memorialized in a March 5 letter cited directly in this ruling. The petition also moved through a foreign ownership review process the FCC had just finished streamlining, following a public comment period the Commission opened in June 2025 and a unanimous vote in January 2026 codifying the streamlined rules under GN Docket No. 25-149, amid Chairman Brendan Carr’s broader push for clarity on foreign ownership of U.S. broadcasters.
The ruling arrives as iHeart’s ownership structure has drawn wider attention this year, including speculation in April about a possible merger with SiriusXM.
