PITTMAN: "CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC" ABOUT RADIO GROWTH

iHeartMedia chief Bob Pittman says he’s “cautiously optimistic” about radio in 2017, the exec told Inside Radio, noting that interest in the medium is up among advertisers who see broadcast TV on the wane and too much fragmentation online. “Agencies and advertisers who ignored radio for a while are back into, OK, tell me about radio and how can I use it again,” he says.

The issue, Pittman says, is less about fighting for marketshare than “how big the pie is.” He says that radio’s pitch will require greater sophistication, particularly with respect to data, to grow beyond its present revenue perch. “The challenge for us is how much can we penetrate the digital buying and how can we get the advertising industry to think about radio as a digital player.”

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