Bob Pittman: 'We Want To Be Everywhere'

Pittman Speaks

CLEAR CHANNEL Chairman/CEO BOB PITTMAN made the rounds yesterday, appearing at CES INTERNATIONAL 2014 and the CITI MEDIA conference in LAS VEGAS, and on CNBC, pushing the power of radio -- and specifically CLEAR CHANNEL -- saying, "We want to be everywhere, just as if you're selling COCA COLA, you like to be at the checkout counter and on the soft drink counter, you would like to be on the end aisle cap. Same with us."

Discussing radio's reach in autos on CNBC, PITTMAN noted, "We are actually in all the major ones. These are sort of the additional ones we have done because it's more shelf space. By the way, we, because all of our radio stations also exist on broadcast radio, we are already in every car, about 278 million cars, so when you get to the 11 million for Internet, by the way, we're on SIRIUSXM with KISS FM and Z-100."

PITTMAN touch upon the company's marketing deals with record companies, saying, "What we're really doing is that's probably one of our most important strategic relationships, the music business. We're the free advertising forum. We're their most strategic relationship. But it was ad hoc. You're not worried about having to pay everyone -- look, there is always a way. The give-and-takes make it work. I think it makes it work for us both. It's a better way to run the business."

PITTMAN was proud of CLEAR CHANNEL's reach, commenting it's “more than GOOGLE or FACEBOOK,” adding that while digital is important,  “less than 10% of listening is to digital.” He believes listeners aren’t substituting digital for terrestrial listening.

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