Bob Pittman Calls Radio 'The Last Mass-Reach, Real-Time Medium'

Bob Pittman

CLEAR CHANNEL Chairman/CEO BOB PITTMAN sat down with RYAN FAUGHNDER of THE LOS ANGELES TIMES after the recent opening of the new iHEARTRADIO THEATER in BURBANK with a performance by KATY PERRY, celebrating the release of her album "Prism."

As always, PITTMAN championed his company -- and radio in general, saying "We're clearly a multi-platform company. Our broadcast stations reach over 240 million people a month. Our outdoor reach is almost 150 million people a month, almost the size of broadcast television. Our digital reach is up to over 60 million now. Our iHEARTRADIO product was the fastest in the history of the Internet to reach 20 million registered users. It looks like we'll be the second-fastest to 40 million. And now we're doing TV shows."

When asked what the company might look like five to 10 years from now, PITTMAN said "we're about massive reach and we're about relationships with the consumer. We build something big, powerful and strong and we'll figure out how to make money on it. We've built this theater, and we haven't pre-sold anything. We don't know how we'll make money on it, but it's important to who we are. Right now, there's probably no one who does anything like what we're doing with the iHEARTRADIO THEATER IN L.A., the iHEARTRADIO THEATER IN NEW YORK, the iHEARTRADIO MUSIC FESTIVAL and the iHEARTRADIO POOL PARTY in the SPRING. We're building out all these major events for our listeners, and they'll all come together financially, eventually."

Summing up the state of radio, PITTMAN noted, "the radio industry has never been bigger or better. With the TV business turning into delayed viewing and cord cutting and binge viewing, radio is the last mass-reach, real-time medium. We've never been more important to the consumer or the advertiser. The radio industry may have been coasting a little bit, but what we're trying to do is amp up our performance and show that we're not limited to our towers and transmitters."

Read the full interview here.

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