While many people may have heard the name "Clear Channel" they don't have any real associations attached to the name.
That's a load of crap, David. I'd love, at this point, to know just what financial interest you have in defending them, because it's obvious that you have at least
something there to stand up for. No unaffiliated person in radio would be so adamant in arguing a point that is such a blatant untruth.
Most people have heard of "Proctor & Gamble" too. A company that specializes in brand marketing did a test a few years back. P&G makes hundreds of products under over 60 different brands just in the US. A random sample of people was asked to name just 10 P&G brands. Nearly everyone came up with 4 or 4 brands before giving up, while few could name 10. Of the ones named, about two thirds were not P&G brands.
P&G is the most successful marketer in the history of the world. Their brands are generally market leaders. But few can associate those successful brands with their maker.
And just like the TV analogy, you're comparing apples to oranges. The marketing strategies differ, the consumer habits differ, and the purposes for both differ. Besides, at no point did I ever say that listeners could list off a certain number of Clear Channel stations. I said that they know of Clear Channel stations in their market or, at the very least, they've heard of Clear Channel and the negative things associated with the company. Similarly, most people may not be able to name a certain number of P&G products, but anyone at my end of my generation or older likely remembers the controversy over their former logo. That would be a much more accurate comparison to make here.
The same happens with radio stations. KIIS in LA or WHTZ in New York are very famous stations in their markets with cumes in the several million range. But, like P&G, the vast and almost total majority of listeners don't know that KIIS or WHTZ were owned by Clear Channel.
And again, it doesn't take a vast or total majority, it takes a vocal minority.
Listeners don't care if Clear Channel was over-leveraged prior to the beginning of the recession.
No, but they certainly care about the results that have come about because of it.
They don't care if Clear Channel implemented voice tracking at some stations.
Haha! Oh
yes they do, David! They may not know what it is by name, but they can tell you when a DJ sounds canned. "It's like he isn't really there." "Is that from a network?" "Why doesn't she talk about anything local?" All things I've heard (among many others) in my two decades in this business. Listeners know the difference. They just don't know the technical details.
They certainly would not have much of an opinion on whether such things were "bad practices" because the average person is not involved in running a business.
I've told you before and I'll tell you again, David: radio is
not a business, radio is radio. It's mass media. People pay much more attention to the way it's produced than most anything else, because the way it's produced directly affects the quality of product they receive, and if they're no longer entertained, they stop buying. Radio's been engaging in bad practices for far too long, and people are tuning out faster than they ever have before. They have other means of getting what they want, and radio has, for the longest time, refused to keep up with them. That's bad business practices directly affecting the product, the listener paying attention to it, and ultimately hurting the bottom line. Exactly the opposite of what you claim happens.
As to changing the name, we have a comparable situation to the Redstone's split of Viacom into two divisions to enhance market value. The change was motivated by investor perceptions that Viacom was an old media company, and the analysts who tracked it were those who specialized in old media investments.
The difference here is that Viacom actually had a decent public perception around the name. Clear Channel did not.
Clear Channel was tracked by analysts who followed Radio One and Cumulus. As Bob Pittman moved the company to a new media future, they were not being perceived as being a new media company. Since it's obvious that the exit strategy of the investment bankers that control the company was an IPO or some form of ownership sale, they needed to create an image of being in a different sector.
Uh-huh. And did he make that decision
before or
after the mist tunnel debacle? The timing would suggest after. Yeah, I'd want to run the hell away from that gaffe, too, if I were him. Now, yes, that's a ridiculous accusation to make, rebranding and entire corporation just because you as CEO made a highly publicized stupid mistake, but the official line that it's a shedding of an old-media image is just as ridiculous. Most younger people weren't aware of what a technological "clear channel" was to begin with, and it didn't hurt their business for
this long. That was no reason to change it. The negative public perception that they've built around the name, however, would explain a lot. It
does explain a lot. Which could be because it
is the real reason.
I've been part of a study of a group of radio stations that are owned by a network parent and identified and promoted as the radio part of that brand. After years and years, about 95% of actual listeners, when asked "who would you say owns that station" could not identify the owner.
Again, network O&O's are not a suitable baseline. Especially not in radio. How many non-Clear Channel stations carry Premiere shows? How many non-CBS (or Cumulus today) stations carry Westwood One programming? And how many radio listeners associate Premiere with Clear Channel or Westwood One with either CBS or Cumulus? The names aren't mentioned together in that context anywhere near as often as Clear Channel has been over their years in the context of promotions on their own stations. You're not going to get the same name recognition with radio networks that you do with parent companies. It's simply another ridiculous comparison.
I doubt 1% of listeners to iHeart streams prior to the parent company name change had a clue as to who owned the company behind the app. They thought iHeart was iHeart and it was a way to listen to hundreds and hundreds of streams, with a vast number not even owned by Clear Channel, including direct competitors in the OTA radio arena. In fact, it appears that "most" are not owned by iHeart with stations from groups like Beasley Broadcast Group. Cox Radio, Cumulus Media, Emmis Communications, Federated Media, Greater Media, Salem Communications, Turner Broadcasting, Univision Radio, Grupo Radio Centro, Grupo ACIR, Grupo Radio México all participating just in the US.
Most of my non-radio friends knew, and I didn't even have to tell them. They just assumed, since the vast majority of stations on the app that they would pay attention to
are Clear Channel stations. It doesn't matter that other companies have jumped on board since the app launched, they remember that it started with Clear Channel, and Clear Channel is the biggest promoter, especially with the associated music festival. Is my circle of non-radio friends more savvy than others? I would hardly think so. They span a wide range of age groups, backgrounds, tastes and listening habits. There's no real way to subjectively qualify it, but they make up a fairly good representation of the general public. And they know. Not because I told them, but because they're not stupid or ignorant.
At this point, I have to ask what Clear Channel did to you that you think that the whole world knows who they are and similarly believes that they are any more "bad" or "evil" than other companies who were caught and ravaged by the recession.
I never said that the whole world knows who they are or that they're any worse than other companies -- who were ravaged by their own practices, not the recession; they were going down in flames long before 2009, so you can get that idiotic notion out of your head right now. They did nothing to me personally, they were simply at the forefront of the destruction of the industry. They were the poster child for post-'96 consolidation, racking up massive amounts of debt (that they still have and will never, ever be able to pay off) to buy up stations that they have done nothing but cut and cut and cut and cut back on, damn near gutting a good many of them and setting the trend for just about every other major owner to follow, which in turn set the trend for the rest of the business, because financially, nobody could keep up. Not to mention their long and futile fight against the digital future which, again, set the stage for the rest of the industry. Personally, they've done nothing to me. I simply happen to be someone who knows radio inside and out, sees how Clear Channel / iHeart -- whatever the hell they want to call themselves -- operates, and understands that the two are entirely incompatible.
