9-25-13
Radio's top executives seem to be taking a new stance when it comes to the Pandora numbers being pushed out -- and often believed without question. Perhaps they see an opportunity to splinter the space now that iTunesRadio has entered the fight. Last week at the RAIN summit in Orlando, Entercom CEO David Field took aim at the Internet Pure Play by stating, "Broadcast radio has 20 times the audience of Pandora." Today at the Goldman Sachs Media Conference in New York it was Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman's turn.
Pittman said he wanted to bust a myth that's often believed when Pandora puts out listening numbers. "All of their radio stations added together don't even make the top 10 in New York. That's all of their stations added up. They don't even come close." Pandora has claimed, by adding up all of their listeners in certain cities, it would rank among some of the top stations in major markets. Pittman said those claims are not credible and radio is credible because the numbers come from an outside source. Pittman, as he often has in the past, described Pandora as a music collection while touting radio as a medium that has been remarkably stable and has relationships with listeners. "Listeners have a unique emotional attachment to radio," he said.
(9/26/2013 1:45:14 AM)
Pittman is historically correct, when he states that listeners have an emotional attachment to radio. They used to, but in many markets Pittman and Clear Channel have fired the proven talent, and dumbed down many of their stations with voice tracking. There is obviously no listener attachment to voice tracking. Then again, Pittman and Clear Channel owe 20 billion dollars to investors, so you can understand the urgency to cut costs, but they are destroying good radio stations in the process.
(9/25/2013 7:21:36 PM)
I'm really surprised that the entire radio community is against Pandora. Pandora is here and here to stay. It is a good and entertaining media. It is extremely popular. Pandora is good for radio it is solid competition. It force radio to up it's game. I call it the Tiger Woods factor. You don't see to many fat and out of shape guys on the PGA tour anymore. The crappy radio that I grew up with will all be gone shortly. Most radio has been horrible for a very long time and it's about to end.
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