Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia’s CEO, told an investor conference Wednesday that his company has intentionally steered away from participating in what amounts to auctions when a big-named talent looks to cut a podcast deal, reports Inside Audio Marketing.
“The good news is a lot of our podcasts aren’t built around big hit talent,” said Pittman. “Every month we will have a hit podcast that you have never heard of the talent or the story. Those are the real money machines for us.”
Bob Pittman |
“We’ve had some talent come to us and we don’t offer them the highest check and there are people who are offering them ‘uneconomic money’ and they come with us anyway because at the end of the day most talent want to be a success. They don’t want to be hidden,” said Pittman. He said many point a perceived loss of momentum for the breakout hit Serial in 2014 after it went exclusively with Pandora as a cautionary tale.
“They come to us, and will continue to come to us, because of the platform we have and our ability to promote the podcast,” said COO/CFO Rich Bressler. “You can have the best podcast in the world, but if no one can find it, it doesn’t do you any good.”
Rich Bressler |
From a financial viewpoint, Bressler told the UBS conference that iHeart’s podcast business continues to have “extremely healthy” profit margins even as the company ramps up its investment in the segment. It is estimated more than a third of the money made goes directly to the bottom line. “We were significantly profitable from day one,” said Bressler. Even so, the overall revenue is still small compared to the company overall which had $3.68 billion in total revenue last year.
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