This past week CBS, Corp. and Entercom announced the merger of CBS Radio's 177 stations with Entercom's 127 stations in a tax-free deal that will form the second largest radio group in terms of revenue in the country behind number-one iHeart Media. In an exclusive interview with FORBES, iHeart Media's Chairman and CEO Bob Pittman praised the deal by saying, “Radio is now the biggest reach medium -- and this merger is another important validation of the value of radio and audio. But with the introduction of the internet and the switching of attention and thus advertising to digital, the radio industry has been challenged to keep growing revenue. Radio has done a much better job of retaining ad dollars than newspapers and magazines, but nevertheless radio revenue growth has been flat or slightly up in the last several years. To counteract the onslaught of digital advertising, radio must move from analogue/terrestrial distribution to digital/internet distribution so that it can sell its inventory programmatically based on highly targeted audiences.

Source: Forbes February 05, 2017 17:48 UTC