💼 Introduction

iHeartMedia is the leading audio media company in the United States, reaching 9 out of 10 Americans every month through a powerhouse network of radio stations, podcasts, live events, and digital platforms. With iconic brands like The Breakfast Club, Elvis Duran, and Stuff You Should Know, iHeart has built a legacy of creating culture-shaping content and connecting with audiences at scale.

As digital consumption patterns shift and short-form video emerges as a dominant channel for discovery and engagement, iHeart recognized a major opportunity: transform its vast library of long-form content into social-first, bite-sized moments that resonate across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Driven by a culture of innovation, iHeart set out to scale its social video efforts without growing headcount or sacrificing quality. The result? A partnership with Overlap AI that helped the company generate over 151 million views in the first two months—entirely through automated video creation and distribution.

🚨 The Challenge

As one of the largest producers of digital video in the U.S., iHeartMedia produces thousands of hours of content across radio, podcasts, and video. However, their ability to turn long-form shows into short-form social video was bottlenecked by manual workflows, inconsistent output, and limited team bandwidth.

Some of their key limitations were: 

• Manual video clipping and editing slowed down publishing.

• High-performing brands (like The Breakfast Club) had limited social repurposing despite a massive content library.

• Dormant or underused social accounts left impressions and engagement on the table.

• Scaling across multiple shows and markets required more human resources than the team could support.

💡 The Solution: Overlap AI

iHeart work with Overlap to deploy automated clipping agents to transform their social video workflows — turning hours of long-form content into viral-ready clips posted directly to TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, with no humans in the loop.

Within weeks, they activated:

• 123 Overlap AI clipping agents

• Automated editing, formatting, and publishing for hundreds stations and shows

• A scalable AI-driven system that works 24/7

📈 The Results

In less than two months, iHeart transformed their content operation from manual and resource-constrained to automated, scalable, and data-driven — unlocking millions of new impressions and revenue without increasing headcount.

“AI isn’t a “bad” word. It gets thrown around a lot, but with the right tools, it can unlock incredible opportunity. We’re already seeing the partnership takeoff with brands hitting +18,000% MoM growth (not a typo) in video views! That’s real momentum driven by smart tech and even smarter collaboration.

I’m excited about what this partnership with Overlap means for our creators, stations, audiences, and the future of sharing content.” - Tony Molaee, SVP of Digital, iHeartMedia

Overlap allowed iHeart to:

• Process thousands of new video hours per day

• 151 million+ views across platforms in under 2 months

• Fully autonomous copywriting and publishing with no manual clipping or editing

• Revived dormant channels and launched new ones with viral success

The ability to use a single platform to scale social content across brands, automate video creation and distribution, reactivate underutilized channels, and generate viral content with zero human effort is revolutionizing how this media giant thinks about AI.

🔎 Let’s Dive Deeper 

The results we’ve shared so far are just a high-level overview of the impact this partnership has had on iHeartMedia’s social video performance. Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the key highlights.

Power 105.1 (YouTube)

In under two months, a dormant YouTube channel with ~63,000 subscribers was reactivated using automated posting of horizontal videos and Shorts. The channel quickly grew to over 88,000 subscribers, generated 68M+ total impressions, and saw top clips reach 2.6M, 790K, and 500K+ views.

The Breakfast Club Highlights (TikTok)

In just 2 months, a brand-new TikTok highlight account powered by Overlap grew from 0 to 19.5K followers—fully edited and published by AI, with zero human involvement. The account generated over 68 million impressions, with top clips reaching 2.6M, 790K, and 500K+ views.

Legacy media companies can easily supercharge their social video strategy by putting it on autopilot with Overlap. By integrating AI agents directly into existing workflows, teams can instantly scale output, boost engagement, and save countless hours. If you’re curious how Overlap could fit into your strategy, feel free to grab time on our calendar.