What Did Bob Pittman and David Field Say Yesterday?

iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman and Entercom CEO David Field believe data will move the revenue needle higher for radio. Tuesday’s Radio Show opening session featuring the two CEOs was all about data. We heard much of the same from the two CEOs, about radio’s effectiveness, about how it’s the least disruptive medium, and how radio is everyone’s companion. So how is data going to take radio to the next level?

When digital became the new buzzword and ad-buying became so simple a caveman could do it, there were some challenges for traditional media. Advertisers were — and still are — getting instant feedback on their ad campaigns with data and analytics. That’s a little tough to compete against when you’re selling air using metered estimates.

Pittman said technology was an enabler of radio on the consumer side, because now there are so many ways to listen, and that’s a good thing. However, he says technology hurt radio on the advertiser side. “Buyers have access to more information than ever. They want real-time results and they want to be able to see that on a dashboard.” Pittman says radio is wildly effective. “But we’re wildly under-priced. We just need to prove our effectiveness. Digital is more measurable, but not more effective. Television has viewers leaving. We just have one problem to fix.”

Field says radio shows up to a gun fight with a knife. That we are the Rodney Dangerfield of media. “Digital is dealing with bits, brand safety and fraud. We don’t have an effectiveness issue. We have an attribution issue and we’re getting better and delivering data at scale.”

Pittman says radio outreaches Google, Facebook, and Amazon. “We now have the data to show attribution and targeting. What radio was missing was the tools. We have to use the technology to play their (digital’s) game.”

Both Pittman and Field agree that as radio continues to share more data and analytics with advertisers and buyers, the revenue will follow.

And, according to Field, from the data being collected from listeners, “We can feed people content we know or think they like.” He used an example of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s show on WEEI in Boston. He says Entercom can target those listeners and tell them about coach Bill Belichick’s show which is on WEEI in a different time slot.

In an earlier video presentation, Beasley’s Jennifer Williams gave a great example of how collecting data can really drive the relationship with listeners. She said if you learn that some of your listeners love pets, or have a dog, then they receive a special e-mail from their favorite DJ with helpful content about pets or dogs. That’s something that Facebook, Google, and Amazon can never do. Sure they can serve you ads, but it’s not the same as hearing from the DJ you grew up listening to every morning. And sales managers, you can surely see how data like that can be turned into additional revenue.  

Whether or not data proves to be the issue that starts to drive radio’s overall revenue up still remains to be seen. There’s no doubt that there’s more data being collected about consumers than ever before. It’s really a question of how radio is using it now and how radio will use it in the days, months, and years ahead.  

Field said radio is in its greatest moment today.