Gordon Hastings is president of ghhMANAGEMENT. He is the founder of the Broadcasters Foundation of America and the former president of Katz Radio and Katz Television. He is a founder of the Radio Mercury Awards and the Broadcasters Foundation of America Celebrity Golf Tournament.
Bob Pittman’s elevation is good news for radio. His new position with reach across all of Clear Channel’s platforms is the very integration that radio needs to build its future. Pittman will not limit his thinking to a single delivery system for radio and I would guess he will embrace a world view of radio’s potential audience.
The Iheartradio Las Vegas Music Festival was a big idea, the kind of prodigious concept that raised the profile of a dynamic radio industry far beyond the Vegas concert halls. The industry received enormous national and international coverage in music, business, advertising, general circulation print, broadcast media, and most dynamic of all, the Internet. Although I do not profess to know the details but I suspect those hot ticket venues were filled with current and potential advertisers, analysts, reporters and bankers along with their sons and daughters at an event that was all about radio. The Iheartradio Las Vegas Music Festival was indeed a bold leap of faith demonstrating no signs of retreat from radio’s next renaissance.
Pittman brings a fabulous calling card to the CEO office of Clear Channel Media Holdings and I would be remiss if I did not say he follows in the tradition of another bold radio broadcaster Clear Channel founder Lowry Mays. Radio’s future is about a leap of faith and bold risks. Bain Capital and their investors have a huge amount at stake but the good news for everyone in radio is that it appears their commitment is to manage and build the business into a new paradigm for success. The entire industry should collectively cheer and climb aboard the big idea express.
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