As radio group revenue continues to decline, digital has been rolled out as the savior of legacy media to offset declining ratings and aging audiences as industry executives pivoted to streaming, programmatic ads, and podcasting but research shows they are playing with the facts.
- iHeart CEO Bob Pittman has frequently hammered the importance of digital even as the much smaller Townsquare delivered higher digital revenue percentages than his company (over 50%).
- But then lately even Townsquare hit the digital wall getting caught up in CEO Bill Wilson’s “dis” of the radio industry being the cause of Townsquare’s problems.
- Podcasting took over and occupied an alternate world even though in this world short attention spans made it impossible for podcasts to compete with radio let alone TikTok and impossible to offer enough commercial avails.
- Littered with bankruptcies, the radio industry is still missing the point about if and where digital, podcasting and video fits in to its future – look no further than the gross margin comparisons for a wakeup call.
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