iHeartMedia CEO, and radio’s Most Powerful Executive for the last decade, says he’s seeing a steady climb out of the pandemic and all signs are very positive. The entire radio industry would like nothing more than to get back to normal and far away from double digit quarterly revenue declines.
With every passing day the number of people receiving the COVID-19 vaccine increases and states begin to open up and lift restriction, businesses, radio’s bread and butter, breathe a sigh of relief. That’s all good news for the industry and Pittman says things continue to move in the right direction.
Both Pittman and COO Rich Bressler spoke at the Deutsche Bank Media Conference Wednesday, which was held virtually. Pittman said it’s very telling that when restrictions are lifted, even a little bit, consumer spending increases, businesses get packed. “We’re feeling good that this is on course.”
And, he added, iHeartMedia has created a company under his leadership ready to take advantage of the new world of efficiencies. “Having the multiple platforms we do, the geographic diversity we do, and our efficiency compared to TV, we get the same results for advertisers at about one third the price of Television. It becomes a real bonus at this point.”
Pittman said when he arrived at what was then called Clear Channel, the company was getting all of its revenue out of a $17 billion radio revenue bucket. It’s a completely different company today. “Today, we are the number one commercial radio podcaster, we have a 2-to-1 lead over other radio companies in terms of audience and 5-to-1 lead in terms of digital radio. We’ve built an events business over the last ten years, and, over the last year, we’ve built out a virtual events business. We have over 250 million followers on social media. We’ve doubled down on audio and diversified and we’ve built an infrastructure to sell our advertising which is more than selling spots, the way of the past.”
Bressler added that iHeart brought in $172 million in digital revenue in Q4 of 2020, and that’s growing at over 50%, and has a 35% margin.
Pittman says all of these platforms give iHeart the opportunity to go after the $50-$60 billion TV bucket of revenue due to the lost reach of Television. And with all the analytics and iHeart’s smart audio buying platform it allows the company to participate in the $100 Billion digital revenue bucket. “In a perverse way the pandemic has pushed people to look for efficiencies and open their minds to new things which will probably have a long term beneficial impact on this company.”
To be sure, “radio’s most powerful executive for the last decade” has has much to celebrate and be proud of. However, I take issue with Pittman when he says, “It’s a completly different company today.” There is one area where, apparently, very little has changed and that is the continued lack of opportunity for women, and I suspect, minorities. The recently released Annual Gender Analysis Study commisioned by Mentoring and Inspiring Women in Radio (MIW), paints an embarrasingly bleak picture of how women are fairing in the industry. The study looked at 11,158 AM and FM radio stations across American and found only 19.9% had female General Managers, 33% had female Sales Managers and 12.2% had female Program Directors. I left the industry roughly 11 years ago after 30+ years. I was stunned when I saw these numbers. It’s never been a particularily female friendly industry, but this is shameful.
The naysayers aside, the facts are that Bob Pittman has brilliantly transformed iHeart into a multi-dimensional media powerhouse. IHeart is a blueprint for other radio companies to follow.