iHeartMedia CEO, Bob Pittman stated some shocking supposed facts during the company’s Q2 earnings call. Pittman has complete confidence in iHeart and the future of radio, partially based on the company’s earnings.
He states, “Radio already has the greatest number of reception devices of any media [in the world]: 1 billion radios as compared to 229 million smartphones and 144 million laptops and netbooks. And now we have the addition of new devices like smart speakers in the home, Alexa and Google Home, which increased listening opportunities for all of our audio properties.”
Quarterly revenue increased 32.8% year-over-year for iHeart during Q2. The service now reaches roughly 275 million Americans monthly.
Pittman states that iHeart has a “well-distributed listener base” compared to its competitors. Then, he went on to claim that “75% of iHeartMedia’s listening comes from 34% of our audience.” While “73% of Spotify’s listening comes from just 3% of their audience and 72% of Pandora’s listening comes from just 5% of their audience.”
A media analyst ran the numbers to illustrate now seemingly impossible those numbers are. Spotify founder and CEO, Daniel Ek jumped in to say that the statement is far from true. Spotify is a music streaming platform giant with roughly 232 million monthly active users in Q2 this year. However Pittman insists in the value of radio and that Spotify along with other streaming platforms benefits from the services of iHeart and other stations.
