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iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman continues to be very high on podcasting. On iHeart’s Q3 earnings call, Thursday, Pittman said podcasting is a rapidly growing and profitable business for the company.
According to Pittman, the reason podcasting is a profitable business for iHeartMedia is because the company owns its content and has over 800 radio stations to promote that content. While Pittman did not give specific revenue figures for podcasting, he did say, “We are seeing tremendous growth from podcasting. The industry is growing rapidly and show no signs of slowing down.”
On more than one occasion Pittman referenced the Forrester Research prediction of $1 billion in ad spend headed to the podcasting space and he believes iHeart will benefit from that. He has also said the more companies that enter the space the better it is for everyone, especially iHeart.
iHeart is the second largest podcasting company in radio behind only NPR, in terms of downloads. The company has about 300 shows, including originals from Will Ferrell and Chelsea Handler. iHeart’s podcasting strategy really kicked into gear with the purchase of How Stuff Works.
Comments:
iHeart is doing on a broadcast level what Apple was doing in 2005 when they first included podcasts for download in iTunes. Apple did it because they were a technology company. Today, iHeart is doing it because the new podcasting content is more interesting than the majority of their OTA radio content. IHeart’s promotion of their branded podcasts is bringing new podcast listeners to the table, and that’s good for all podcasters.