Field Memo: Entercom Spells Out Goals

Eighteen months after Entercom rolled up CBS Radio, David Field reflects on what the company has accomplished following its “transformational merger” – and what it aims to do next.

David Field

In a nutshell, InsideRadio reports the CEO plans to make “significant investments” in Entercom’s audio brands, make Radio.com “one of the country’s leading digital audio apps,” step up attribution efforts for advertisers and add more “talented leaders and specialists.”

In a Tuesday memo to employees, Field revisits themes heard on recent earnings calls: Entercom now has the scale and capabilities to successfully compete with other media companies for a larger share of ad dollars. Other memo talking points include the broadcaster’s news and sports prowess, new local brands launched like New York’s “Alt 92.3” and Chicago’s “104.3 Jams” and the rollout of the Entercom Audio Network. Putting a number on it, Entercom has invested nearly $100 million “in new content, products, technology, capabilities, systems, brands and a large number of new jobs to accelerate our growth and make us a stronger, more competitive organization,” Field writes.

Never one to shy from a sports analogy, Field says results are “starting to show up on the scoreboard.” Fourth quarter revenues grew 4%, Q1 was up 3% and Q2 is pacing up 4% with the rest of 2019 “looking very good.”

In his memo, Field spelled out specifics of the company’s focus over the next 18 months:

• “We will continue to make significant investments in our products and brands to enhance the quality of how we serve the 170 million listeners who touch our brands each month.
• “We will continue to build and improve Radio.com aggressively toward our goal of making it one of the country’s leading digital audio apps.
• “We will work to enhance and grow our news brands and deepen their audience engagement.
• “We will elevate our community service work, focusing on our five areas of key focus: the environment; the military community; suicide prevention and related medical health issues and bullying; pediatric cancer care, and civics education.
• “We will roll out new and enhanced data, analytics and attribution capabilities to better demonstrate our outstanding value to our customers.
• “We will continue to step up our share shift efforts with medium and large local and national advertisers by enhancing our toolkit with products like Nielsen’s Local and National NMI. NMI uses actual Nielsen audience data to powerfully demonstrate why advertisers should shift large portions of their media budget into radio, just as a number of companies, most notably P&G, have done.
• “We will build on our powerful sports platform and further develop our podcasting business
• “We will continue to add more outstanding and talented leaders and specialists to our team.”