The Disconnect: Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia, and the Fading Signal of Traditional Radio

All right, podcast Excellence since 2005. This is the King of Podcasts Radio Network. KingOfPodcasts.com. iHeart Media CEO Bob Pittman says that radio is a quote-unquote constant trusted companion. Well, you know what? I would ask the employees and the shareholders if they feel the same way.

The King of Podcasts Radio Network proudly presents The Broadcasters Podcast. Here is the King of Podcasts, a little bit after Thanksgiving night here on The Broadcasters Podcast. Thanks for listening in and finding the show, as you always do. KingOfPodcasts.com is where all my programming is, including all the episodes here. Coming up on 360 episodes, if it isn't already. I haven't checked the number right away, but we're getting up to the end of year six on the program, started January 2018. Here we go, and we're eventually going to get to the year-end. You know, I couldn't help myself. Bob Pittman decided to go on MSNBC this week and talk about radio in terms of its importance in the culture, important for getting news and information out there. So Bob Pittman talked, but as I said, when I continue to hear him being like this visionary, this seer, this prophet if you will, in media, it's not a question about that. Bob Pittman has not had a track record of success that brought him to iHeart Media. Okay, what he did for himself leading up to here, I'm not disputing that part. Okay, never doing that, and I'm not going to ever go ahead and say that he's anywhere where I feel like he's not worthy of some recognition and some thought of his expertise. Okay, get that part. We know that in his back, back before he did everything else, okay, CEO of MTV Networks, co-founder, programmer that made MTV what it is today, which you know when it was great as a music network, right. And not only is he co-founder of iHeart Media, but also C.C. Gones Tequila, and has been on the boards of Electronic Arts, Atari, Excite, 3DIO, MTV Networks, HFS, Send, and AOL Time Warner. Worked as a radio TV host, marketer, investor, media entrepreneur. And we call him a jack of all trades, and also he's been called a media visionary and has gotten an award for being a media visionary. He also was very important in helping Nickelodeon become the channel that it is right now for older kids, helping to develop VH1. A naked night? Listen, all the credit to him. Understood. But we're at today, okay? All that heyday right there is very much about 40 years ago now. And what we have right now with radio, he's here as the figurehead, and when he speaks here, and I think of him representing this company, and he makes a good amount of money, I think about $5 million plus also some bonuses that he gets as a CEO. Meanwhile, the rest of the company has been in shambles. He has overseen a bankruptcy in 2018 where the company was $20 billion in debt and was able to go ahead and resolve about $15-plus billion of that to about $5.75 or $5.6 billion in debt after the bankruptcy. Some stations being put into a trust and some other items, and other cuts were made, other layoffs of course. But iHeart Media continues to go along. The valuation continues to be something important because their podcasting arm has had some success, but it's not doing enough to outweigh the overlaid debt that they were left with. Lowry Mays, okay, the Mays family left this company in debt. We understand that, and iHeart Media is never able to go and come back from that. Right now, latest story is that their debt's now going to be pushed into 2030. An exchange offer has been made right now. We'll talk about this real quick, and then we'll go into the interview with Bob Pittman, only about seven minutes, a quick seven-minute hit with Stephanie Ruhle over MSNBC. And here's what he got right now. So there's two potential offers for shareholders: comprehensive exchange offers or alternative exchange offers. And depending on the number of participants, so terms and payouts were required. The participation of 95% of note holders for the comprehensive offer. Holders of the $800 million and 6.375% secured senior notes due in 2026, iHeart Media is going to offer $940 for every $1,000 of existing notes and new 9.125% notes. So if you wait another couple of years, we're going to go ahead and make sure you get more of your money back. So let's allow us to get more time to go ahead and push back on our debt. So some of these notes due in 2026, they want to make it where their debt is going to be more laden past 2030, another six years, another five years as a matter of fact. iHeart Media recently in their third quarter reported rising revenue, as they're going to say, there's more evidence now that 2024 is a recovering year for advertising revenues. Now listen, part of it is they had some political ads that got thrown into the mix. So political advertising in the fourth quarter obviously will put them over the top. They're going to have some windfall from that. That's not coming back next year. And when it's a recovering ad market, he says the quarterly results, Bob Pittman says, quote, also reflects the power of our assets, upside from political advertising, and the benefit of our ongoing focus on cost efficiencies. With these cost efficiencies, it doesn't mean that the quality of the content is better. Doesn't mean that they're going to get any more individuality or local content, live content out there. They're just going to homogenize, they're going to downsize, they're going to micromanage even more, and that's all he's been doing. So these kind of stories get down under the radar, but I'm pointing it out here. Listen, as always, these radio companies are allowed to go and continue to extend their debt out years. Odyssey did it earlier this year. Cumulus has done it. All these major radio companies have done that. There's going to be a change to the FCC. I'd like to go and see what happens when they go and take care of this, because that's one of the things I'm also looking at. We're going to talk about Brendan Carr, who will be assuming the chairman position of the FCC coming up in the new Trump administration, and see what he does about that and what's going to be done in terms of FCC regulation over free speech, over censorship, and also over content and all the things that go along with it. But we'll get into that. But now I want to go ahead and get into the interview that Bob Pittman had with Stephanie Ruhle. Look, and he says everything is about companionship. He's basically speaking about radio's resilience in a changing media landscape. So with that said, I bring you Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC with iHeart Media CEO Bob Pittman.

And how it's radically changing, but it is the quiet companion, the radio that still speaks to more Americans than anything else. iHeartRadio reaches 250 million people a month. That's more than Facebook, more than YouTube. And it's the number one broadcast radio company and number one podcast publisher in the United States. This company knows a thing or two about what Americans care about.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. There's not... If they were doing what Americans cared about, they would actually have resources and a budget, and they would have an audience and they would have talent out there to be able to go ahead and offer this, not this homogenized, nationalized kind of deal. And also, Stephanie, when you're repeating that story, okay, they're taking from the story from CNBC that says about radio's surprising resilience even in a rapidly changing media world, and they put in the story right here: 860 stations now iHeart Media owns. Again, they've had to let some stations go. It was well over 900 before. Again, they always say, oh, 90% of the audience is listening to radio at least one hour a week, all this stuff, whatever. And yeah, you know, it's these numbers they kind of fudge out, fidget out to the shareholders every month or every quarter to try to make sure they can go and continue to do what they do. Now, oh, we got something promising in our quarterly results. Let us extend our debt, let us extend our interest payments, let's push them back. That's what we want to do. Anyway, so Stephanie, I know that's what the story says, and that radio supposedly is going to do what listeners want and what the people want. They don't have the resources to do that. They don't have the wherewithal. And newspapers, and you know, it's not even the fact that they would try to go and do that. Remember, radio stations are losing newsrooms, okay? They're losing newsrooms. What was it? KFI dropped their entire news staff. KJ did that last year. You know, you only have so many stations that have news teams now. NPR said to drop news staff. A lot of local news has been dropped off altogether. They don't have the way to go and disseminate information. So what are you left with? A bunch of national talk radio hosts that are going to go and just give you information that they have. You're lucky if the show's going to be live or it might be taped. So it's not necessarily the air of giving information. It's just a place that will have information secondhand and will deliver it to you with some commentary that you might agree or disagree with. Let's move along to Stephanie and see what else she says before she introduces Bob.

That is why I've invited Bob Pittman, Chairman and CEO of iHeart Media, to join me for tonight's keynote conversation. Bob, I'm so glad to see you.

We came out of this election and people said, what did I miss? Well, the radio is on in every home in America.

America, what? It depends. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you mean the radio's on in every home in America? There are not a lot of people that have actual regular radios anymore. If they do, you have to hope that they're listening on SiriusXM or TuneIn or another radio app or the iHeartRadio app for that matter. And how many of those people can you say are actually listening to radio stations that are out there on the AM/FM dial? Because remember, for the most part, radio people right now, people listening to radio right now, they're not listening portably. I don't think so. They're listening in their cars. That's where you definitely have an FM/AM radio for sure in your person. There is nobody I know of that is listening to the radio in home now. This is not Arthur Godfrey's Talent of Stars or whatever it is, the Kaleidoscope of Stars, whatever it is. This is not... We're not listening to Jack Benny and Lucy. We're not doing that, okay? Stop it. This is delusion that's being done. And obviously Bob Pittman was probably making sure that when Stephanie pitches this question and pitches the conversation, she has to say this. It's not real. Fact is what radio's been allowed to go ahead and get away with for a long time. Anyway, here's Bob on who you're talking about, saying that because there's some people go, yeah, this is exactly what I thought would happen. Friends here in Manhattan and other places I spend a lot of time probably said, what?

And by... Okay, yeah, see, he wants to say the facts out there, whatever that Nielsen puts out there, the Edison Research, the Inside Radio survey, right? All this stuff, okay. Now, Bob, if you're going to honestly say that you're actually giving information out there that people want, can we just kind of hit the real skeleton in the closet here? You operate plenty of conservative radio stations, conservative talk. Stephanie Ruhle is on a network that they don't necessarily agree. They actually think that there's this information being put on your network. The fact of the matter is, Bob, is that your network, okay, Premiere Radio Networks, which is the primary distributor from iHeart Media, okay, it was owned by iHeart Media and that was kind of split off. But now you're talking about Clay Travis and Buck Sexton, the replacement for Rush Limbaugh. You're talking about Sean Hannity, okay? You're talking about Glenn Beck. I'm just saying, you have plenty of conservative programming and stations that are running Fox News at the top of the hour for five minutes. And you're going to tell people that you are this equal time kind of station? No, you're not. You're not. We don't have an America anymore. We don't have shows that are out there that have a liberal slant or just a left-wing slant. We don't have those on radio, okay? Let's be honest here. And Stephanie Ruhle is not going to call him out on that. But that's the other part too. Where's the diversity in media on the radio? Why is radio allowed to get a pass? You know, if there is any on radio at all, it's not on his, it's not on his time. It's NPR, okay? Bob Pittman and iHeart Media representing iHeart Media, they are the conservative. They're more like the Fox News. You know what? NPR is more like a CNN, MSNBC style. And I'm not saying one is better than the other. I'm not saying that. But it's one thing to be said about, okay, they really can't make that much money off of advertising here on iHeart Radio. Look at what they have to do. But NPR, yeah, they get donor support and they get government support to buoy them up. Good for them. But like you, that's what they're going on right there. The same goes for SiriusXM. A lot of conservative programming over there now. They have other podcasts and other talk programming that might not necessarily be of a political slant that would be favorable to most. I mean, listen, that's the part that she's trying to bring up here. It's this is again from a political standpoint, but she's trying to talk about radio from an overall standpoint here. And what Bob is trying to say. So I mean, if we're going to go talk about that part right there and say, okay, that's what they're doing. So when I hear Bob Pittman saying that they represent a very unbiased view or a very centralized or very well-rounded view, their networks don't do that. Their stations, all these AM/FM stations they own, mostly conservative, right-wing. So he's able to go and skip past that. Let me go back to that answer real quick and one more time, just hear this. Hold on a second.

So okay, the other part to this is that if Bob Pittman had to go and worry about what shows he could put on that's going to make money, well, let's just make it clear. All right, Marc Maron, Lionel, Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes, Cole Sandler, Thom Hartmann, a lot of other shows they could put on all these stations right now that are still broadcasting programming out there, or they're kind of like sitting out in the back trying to go and get a job somewhere, trying to get back on the radio somewhere. And we used to have Ed Schultz back in the day. But like, the problem is now the left-wing side of talk, they're not on iHeart Radio. They're not, unless they're not available. But for the most part, they're on NPR. That's where you find them. That's where people listen to them. They're not on iHeart Radio stations. And so for him, if he's talking about radio in total, okay, that's one thing. But if he's trying to say that he's trying to do something about that as well, no, because he just said himself, if they can't make money on it, if the advertisers won't come in and buy on the shows, he doesn't care. He doesn't care. He's not a radio person, okay? He's all about advertising. He needs to try to go ahead and lure money in to pay off their debt, because they're not going to make a profit. They need to pay off their debt. Moving along.

So what is it that radio knows? The fact that you have all this data, speak to all these people. I mean, the fact that you're from Mississippi, I think that being from New Jersey is my superpower. What do you know that we don't?

Then why don't political consultants know this?

Now here's the other part. He's got to make mention of use that focus groups used to have research, you used to have callbacks, you used to have callers. You might have the national talk shows that will have callers calling in that represent 1% of the audience and will give you some kind of an idea of what they think about things. But we don't have the wherewithal to have live call on shows like we used to. We don't have the feedback like we used to. Or if we do, we get what, texts or what social media posts, comments, right? There's no feedback coming into these radio stations. They're not trying to go ahead and gather feedback. And if there's any feedback they're trying to get at all, they're doing surveys or polls or whatever other focus group studies they have, whatever kind of presentations they have to make to continue to try to get people to go ahead and buy on the radio at ridiculous prices for 30 seconds, or to have them buy on separate media platforms. Not any discounts, not any bundles, nothing like that. No. So the thing is that he's trying to go and offer content and like, but they don't have anybody that's actually offering any insight as to what should be talked about. Like there is no public community, no public opinion that's allowed. They agree to disagree. Listen, one of the best things I remember that we used to have over WJNO when I was working there, and it was towards the tail end, Randi Rhodes was there, and obviously she's a left-wing talk show. And one of the best parts that happened because the producers that were there at that time in WJNO, if there were opposing views, they were not silenced, they were not filtered out, they were let on the air all the time. For the credit of one show I listened to, this political talk show that if I catch it in the morning is The Steve Kane Show hosted by Brian Craig. You know what that guy does? He takes opposing views. He'll take the brunt of callers out there, and we actually hear from people that are actually what they feel like their mindset is on whatever it is. They can agree to disagree as well. You know, and social media, for what? On TikTok, there were certain guys I'm talking about when it came to podcasting. There were a couple of guys that were brought out there, some young kids, Gen Z, that were regularly on doing live streams and talking to different opinion, and they were basically doing the idea of persuading people that their thought of voting for Trump, they shouldn't. Here's why you should vote for Harris. And that was their whole deal. But it was good dialogue, some good debate on there, and I enjoyed it. You know, thought they had their ways of doing it, the way they're kind of like presenting things, and of course they're going to do whatever they can to make sure that their debate is they're going to win and their argument is going to win over the people that are calling in. Radio's not doing that at all. Bob, you don't give the resources, the money, or the talent the opportunity to go ahead and get feedback from the audience. How about some local talk shows that get some feedback and you can actually hear from people? We can actually get some calls out there. Listen, all these radio stations, you still have Telos, you still got phone hybrids in there, you still have ways to take calls. You didn't take those out of those studios. They're still there. You could still be using them, but you don't. Give out the phone number. Let's hear from some people. I'd love to go and see that. But we're not going to get that from Bob. They're not allowing that. Not in this new corporate structure. They're going to continue to go and take away from it. What are you going to do? You going to let AI go and do it? An AI robot do the commentary? Create an AI robot that will also go ahead, or an AI voice that's going to also be the callers? What are you going to do next, Bob? Where's the real feedback? You're not offering a village of public opinion. You're not offering the space on your radio stations to do that. So don't patronize us.