CCM+E CFO to Pandora: Prove It

Richard Bressler

During a conference call with financial analysts and investors Thursday Clear Channel Media+Entertainment CFO Richard Bressler touted radio and took a swipe at Pandora for its number of listeners claims.

Berssler said “radio also has a unique distribution, broadcasting to the entire population of a market.”  He said radio is a true mass media, not delivery to a single user. Hel also stated radio listening is backed by accredited media metrics. “Rather than internally generated statistics, we use third-party data.”

“Advertisers know who is actually listening to our content. In a market like New York City, the monthly reach of just one of our stations broadcasting from the top of the Empire State building is 3x larger than a collection of every single Pandora stream in the market,” according to Bressler.

According to Bressler, AM/FM radio dominates listening with the latest figures as reported last week in The Wall Street Journal showing AM/FM radio at 92% of all radio listening.

“This means that 8% of all listening is digital. And of that 8%, it's estimated that Pandora is only 4% to 5% of that. And, of course, we are also a part of that digital 8% with iHeartRadio and local radio stations where franchises go nicely into digital as well.”

Other highlights of Bressler’s comments:

• Radio station brands backed by local personalities, guest artists talking to our listeners, 20,000 annual local events, local content and almost 3,000 local sellers engaged in their communities
• It's a real relationship with our listeners who tune in for companionship and to find out what's going on in the world
• Radio is engagement. It's interactive and it's highly targetable
• Clear Channel has the largest U.S. reach of Hispanics, African Americans and moms