Last week at The Radio Show in Dallas, while answering questions about podcasting on a group head panel, iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman said “Podcasting is Radio’s Birthright.” That statement was then posted to the Podcast Movement Facebook page by Todd Cochrane which set that community off. Here’s how some in the podcasting community reacted…
Matt Cundill said: “Given the way they treat their own medium, they have forfeited any notion of birthright. In the US, their two biggest companies have had decade’s long bankruptcies, and in Canada the owners use the medium solely to peddle cell phones while losing money annually.”
Douglas Reed: “I think it’s better to say the podcasting is radio’s kid that radio ignored and made fun of, until podcasting made it big and now radio’s shown up in podcasting’s driveway in a Winnebago asking for money.”
Dana Coston: “Wow. This is so incredibly ill-informed that only a person with an agenda or unmitigated ego would make it. In the great Cosmic Venn diagram of things that podcasting shares with radio, the shared set is actually quite small. Business model, underlying technology, mode of delivery, type of content, Mass appeal versus long tail, the list goes on… ALL diametrically opposed. The shared set: consumed as audio, audio production techniques, audio recording hardware, vocal talent, some monetization strategies.”
Jason E. Norris posted: “NPR and other public radio were early adopters and did well with it. Commercial radio seemed less able to understand and adapt to using podcasts.”
Ariel Hardy: “Sounds like they think regular people shouldn’t have access to the vast creativity of free internet podcasting, and want it for themselves.”
Scott Johnson: “Sounds much like 12-15 years ago, when newspapers and “real” journalists were downplaying and lamenting the rise of independent bloggers.”
Dan R Morris: “I agree with his overall sentiment. TV did make a mistake when it didn’t morph fast enough and thus Netflix and Prime took over. Blockbuster made the same mistake not morphing to streaming content. It’s possible we’ll be saying the same thing about radio soon, which is his point. Radio needs to adopt podcasting or they will be Blockbuster’d.”
Read the entire string of comments HERE.
Radio does at least one thing extremely well: It waters down and suppresses content.
Hence, expect sappy, slurpy podcasts.
And let’s not forget Bob Pittman’s 2011 declaration that “…broadcasters shouldn’t become too hung up on digital revenue.”
How quickly the industry forgets its recent past.
To be fair, Pittman and Brenner are beholden to the investors of their respective companies. Don’t expect innovation or creative leadership out of either one of them, and that is not meant as a criticism. The investors that they report to, are not looking for leadership or taking care of the employees or serving the listeners (a quaint concept, lol). Rather, they are looking to reduce costs and maximize investor returns. Anotherwords, there is no Santa Claus!
Additionally, I can see companies like iHeart and Cumulus over-saturating the market with podcasts as they turn every show into a podcast in an attempt to maximize profit while ignoring quality.
Radio, after all, is a for-profit business.
Unless a company has an outstanding balance sheet, why would executives from those companies be considered as meeting leaders to whom we should listen for direction? Their own P & L sheet is proof of their ineffectiveness and misdirected ideas.
It’s why I stopped going to radio conventions years ago. The “Headliners” are, inevitably, iHeart or Cumulus “experts” who were part of the disaster that has caused negative carryover into all radio. Because of the ineptness of these two companies you can’t get a banker to talk to you about financing. Why the NAB insists on inviting these clowns back year after year beats the hell out of me. Pittman is the worst of all, now that Dickey is off the stage.
I agree with the statement coming from one that has an agenda. Podcasting and HD have been forgotten until a radio brand is moved to an AM signal. Then Podcasting and HD is means to promote the main brand signal. Also when the CO has no means to encode the stream for PPM.