iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman On The Future Of Audio

“Audio is hot for the first time in decades,” iHeartMedia's Bob Pittman told NBC News in a recent interview.

Bob Pittman

In January, a court approved iHeart’s plan to exit bankruptcy and reorganize the company’s debt. With iHeart’s debt now reduced from $16.1 billion to $5.75 billion, the company has new plans for growth.

Among other topics, Pittman told NBC's  Claire Atkinson, his new vision for iHM.  "Audio is hot for the first time in decades. And people don’t quite appreciate the nuance of it. There are two parts to the audio sector. There’s radio and a music collection, both have done well over the years. The music collection side of the equation has been impacted by technology and it has transformed it. Spotify is really winning the music collection side of things. Radio is also benefiting from the technology revolution. It’s added more and more ways to listen to the radio on hundreds of new platforms and thousands of new devices, from smart speakers to smart TVs and game players. iHeart is leading the radio side of things.

"Something like the smart speaker has been terrifically important to us with [Amazon’s] Alexa. It has replaced the home radio. We were having a problem. It’s hard to find a plain old radio anymore, and now we have one. The number one use is AM/FM radio, and number two is check the weather, number three is a reminder, and then we get down to the streaming music services. It has replaced the clock radio. We envision it’s probably going to cars."

As for radio versus streaming, Pittman stated, "Between 70 and 80 percent of Spotify users say the main way they discover music is FM Radio. Things haven’t changed, you know.

"In the old days we’d hear it on the radio and buy a CD or a download. Now you hear it on the radio and you put it on your Spotify playlist. They’re the most important part of the music collection sector, and we are the most important part of the radio sector. The number of people we reach eclipses their reach in the United States by a mile. More people listen to the radio than have a music collection. There are 275 million people listening to us and maybe 80 million to Spotify. It’s not even half yet. If you look in the car, the streaming services all combined are probably a little below CDs. We keep it in perspective.

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