Pittman is chairman/CEO of Clear Channel, the U.S. radio industry’s largest company and owner of iHeartRadio among other media assets. Mason is president/CEO of CBS Radio, one of the largest big-market station owners and industry revenue generators.
Both started in radio — Pittman recalled that “I needed a job to pay for flying lessons,” and Mason joked that, as a 12-year-old, “I was the biggest contest pig who ever lived” — though their careers have taken much different paths since.
Both spoke about the continuing power of the medium while also emphasizing that content trumps technology. In radio, “we’re content, not an appliance,” Mason said. He noted the industry’s expansion to other platforms. “We have to be passionate about content and where we put it. It might not be on radio all the time.”
He and Pittman kept returning to that theme. Mason quoted a colleague telling him, “People will not listen to bad content on a good device.” Pittman described Clear Channel and CBS Radio as “companies that put talent first” and said, “There’s no franchise in the world better than a radio station. … We [also] need to express that through new devices.”
The Clear Channel executive brought applause when he said the industry tends to hurt itself through a lack of collective marketing.
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