NEW YORK�Bob Pittman, the chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, was interviewed onBloomberg TV on Nov. 9, and he made some interesting statements about streaming, along with the state of over-the-air radio. Pittman talked about radio mainly in the context of Apple, and how Apple is attempting to �disrupt��the streaming music business, just as it did in the music sales business, by the introduction of iTunes.
�You�ve got to get rid of the �streaming label, because that�s not what consumers use. Ninety percent of consumers say �I listen to both radio, and my music collection, at different times, for different reasons.��
�There are some that are replacing CD sales, and then there�s radio, and there�s something a little bit in between, called Pandora and iHeartRadio.�
In my opinion, though, this was the most interesting statement: �Three percent of in-car listening is to streaming services in the broadest sense, so we shouldn�t get carried away.� When you look at radio, radio still of all listening is about 90 percent�and about 10 percent�is to digital versions of it including iHeartradio and Pandora.�
In a response to a more fundamental question about the future of radio, Pittman replied: ��…at the end of the day, radio is digital.� If it were invented today it would certainly be in the digital category. Imagine this: No data charge, and no buffering.� What a marvelous frequency. �The consumer doesn�t know the difference between cellular frequency and FM frequency, and by the way, nor do I.� Nor do I care.�
