11-7-13
Clear Channel President and Chief Financial Officer Richard Bressler was the latest high-ranking radio executive to take Pandora to task for the radio listening numbers its been boasting about. Earlier this week, Pandora announced it now owned 8 percent of all U.S. radio listening. Bressler (pictured) said the entire online listening universe is only 8 percent and that includes iHeartRadio.
"Pandorda is 4-5 percent of that." He added, "These guys are not radio. Not even close to being radio. We are real radio, with unique content and unique distribution platforms, local personalities and 20,000 local events. All of Pandora's stations combined have yet to penetrate the top 10 in New York City."
Bressler also pointed out that radio has accredited media metrics with data from a third party. Pandora does not give specifics about where they get their number from and there is no way to verify the number. If Pandora salespeople are using that number when calling on local accounts, the question becomes are those advertisers believing it. Bressler said Clear Channel has not seen any impact from Pandora or iTunes radio on local sales.
(MANAGERS PERSPECTIVE)
It's about time the guys with the big bullhorns starting speaking up. There's not a single mainstream or tech media representative that challenges Pandora on the U.S. radio listening number. In an effort to fall all over the Pandora brass they simply report anything the company sends them every month. Bravo to Bob Pittman, David Field and now Richard Bressler for calling them out on this.
All opinions are offered by long-time, well-known radio industry General Managers and Market Managers who are readers of Radio Ink Magazine and radioink.com. If you'd like to offer your perspective on a future story, contact Ed Ryan at edryantheeditor@radioink.com)
(11/9/2013 5:22:01 AM)
Pandora, Slacker and other personalized music services are slowly sucking the life out of radio. Pandora, you do not need to respond!
(11/8/2013 5:52:14 PM)
Do you really believe that a local advertiser cares about Pandora's national share?? As a buyer of local media I don't care. What I care about is whether my media impressions are targeted? Are they guaranteed to deliver to a real consumer who can buy my product? Does this platform work as far as delivering measurable results? The feature benefits of Pandora are why I buy it and yes it does work - better and more constantly than any station I use. It's about my results stupid!
(11/8/2013 1:36:23 PM)
Pandora, don't get suckered into this game. Radio folks are desperate just like the Obama Democrats, lashing out. Pandora has nothing to prove to radio. Listeners have proved they love personalized music, nothing the OTA radio technically could ever achieve.
(11/8/2013 10:22:14 AM)
internet #'s are murky. example with an average of 55 connections an hour for 6 hours the TTSL for a thirty day period would be (cume kind of) 80,000 tune-in (less than 1 minute)- five minute tune-in would be 14,000 for 30 days. most internet listening consists of 17 year boys ripping audio. the internet music service (so called radio) it's smoke and mirrors.
(11/8/2013 10:17:01 AM)
Why hasn't anyone done the math on this? Mulitiply radio's estimated 253 million listeners times 15 hours a week of radio listening and then times 4.33 weeks per month to come up with 16.5 billion (give or take)monthly radio listening hours. Pandora claims about 1.5 billion listening hours in the most recent month. 1.5 billion divided by the total (radio and Pandora) of 18 billion hours is about 8% of total radio/pandora listening. So yes, they may be correct in their claim if they are being forthcoming in thier listening hour claim. All of us who stream are now familiar with monthly listening hours. Radio has more than 12 times the listening of Pandora. THat should be the story.
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