Larry Rosin Vs. iHeartMedia -- Day Three

Rosin And iHeartMedia Square Off

The war of words between EDISON RESEARCH Pres. LARRY ROSIN and iHEARTMEDIA enters day 3... with no letup.

On TUESDAY (NET NEWS 1/6), ROSIN took to his company blog and wrote a piece called, "Why Is iHEARTRADIO Not Growing?" In it, he noted, "I started to notice something a while ago and for whatever reason seems not to have gotten attention -- iHEARTRADIO has simply stopped growing."

Then YESTERDAY (NET NEWS 1/7), iHEARTMEDIA responded, with EVP/Chief Communications Officer WENDY GOLDBERG releasing a company statement that started with "the blog you posted about EDISON’s take on iHEARTRADIO’s growth shows one thing in particular: That EDISON simply doesn’t understand consumers," and ended with, "When discussing consumer listening, it’s helpful to have a full understanding of consumers’ actual audio behavior."

It's no surprise that ROSIN addressed the iHEARTMEDIA response.

TODAY (1/8), he blogs, "There is a famous saying in the legal profession: 'If the facts are against you, argue the law.  If the law is against you, argue the facts.  If the facts and the law are against you, yell like hell'. On MONDAY I posted an entirely fact-based statement about iHEART’s streaming data as supplied by TRITON DIGITAL (a company whose information has received accreditation from the MEDIA RATINGS COUNCIL and is widely considered accurate)."

ROSIN continues, "On TUESDAY the article got picked up by the radio trades, and predictably the people at iHEART felt the need to ‘respond’ via their Public Relations team."

So what's ROSIN's take on iHEART's response? "Normally I would take the ‘high road’ and just let this absurd statement go," pens ROSIN.  "But iHEART has chosen to resort to insults.  While the stuff in the middle of this statement is just a bunch of change-the-subject nonsense that does not even address the points in my article, the beginning and end are what is characterized as an 'ad hominem' argument.  Meaning -- if you can’t argue the position, attack the arguer.

"So here is my response to the PR folks at iHEART, or whoever directed them to write this: You know that you have neither the ‘facts nor the law’ on your side. Some facts: The shares of iHEART stations in PPM markets are down.  The sum of the publicly reported 6+ shares for all iHEART stations in PPM markets were DOWN 3% when comparing stations between SPRING of 2012 and SPRING of 2014. As my original post stated and the response does not refute, iHEART’s online listening is flat.  (The response doesn’t even dispute the TRITON numbers -- it changes the topic to ‘uniques’ and 'session starts' -- two things that don't mean listening and that I didn't even mention).  So let me quote iHEART back to itself.  'What makes more sense to discuss is ‘total listening,’ which would combine total digital listening with broadcast radio listening to represent all platforms consumers are using'. Agreed.  Let's discuss 'total listening.'  If iHEART's 'over the air' numbers are down, and their online listening is flat... what is iHEART's 'total listening' trend? Prediction: Any response will change the subject to a growing 'cume' -- the number that grows on account of U.S. population growth, and not expanded radio 'listening' as measured by time spent (ratings). "

ROSIN sums up, "I also suggest that anyone interested rereads the original post.  There is not a single insulting word about iHEART as a company or its products.  I didn't attack iHEART, I merely stated a fact about their reported online listening from a highly credible 'objective, third-party measurement' source.  And then asked 'Why?'  Because iHEART doesn’t have the facts on its side, it chooses to resort to insults. iHEART has to ‘yell like hell’ because someone has dared to shine the light on the truth."

ALL ACCESS reached out to iHEARTMEDIA for a response, and EVP/Chief Communications Officer WENDY GOLDBERG had no comment.

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