They will become more and more of a force from a consumer standpoint and it’s no different than any other customer. You got to cater to that customer. And so — and that’s the conversation that I’m hearing among advertisers now. But yeah, if the government doesn’t give a — about diversity and inclusion, then I think there will be some corporations that will pull back on that. Because generally, government pressure or fear of some sort of government regulation or retribution causes good corporate citizenship. But that’s my general view, but you never know. I mean, forgot who it was, but Donald Trump went his way out the door and pardoned, I forgot, a number of wrappers or whatever like — I forgot who it was. It’s like who would have thought, right?
Was it Lil Wayne? I don’t remember who that was. So maybe he — if he wins the presidency, maybe he all of a sudden decides it’s a good business as well. Never know. But that’s my view. I mean, look, the progressive wing of the democratic party right now has got a lot of people talking about fairness and equity and justice. And then — and the traditional faction of the democratic party is, yeah, those are things that we believe in too, right? And so that helps with this wave.
Bradd Kern: Okay. I appreciate that. That’s helpful response. On a related note, your core audience, are you seeing the sort of existential time for radio listenership and secular pressures there? Are you seeing better consumption trends or how — can you just talk about consumption trends of your core audience versus competitors?
Alfred C. Liggins: Everything in traditional media is going down and seeing less consumption. And so — but radio feels safer and better and less, and in less of a free fall than the pay-TV ecosystem does. But I think what we’re also seeing is with radio, we’re dealing with less rating points right now. If you looked at our revenue, Peter, you did that analysis. Our revenue is really kind of on par, what was the analysis you did?
Peter D. Thompson: When you look at audio, looking across the radio segment reach and digital audio, we’re still above pre pandemic levels of revenue and EBITDA despite the fact that the universe of listeners has gone down fairly significantly post pandemic as you might imagine given different working patterns and commuting patterns.
Alfred C. Liggins: So I’m going to give some credit to one of the CEOs, premier CEO in the industry, Bob Pittman. I had a conversation with him in Cannes at this advertising festival. And we were talking about the radio business and he hammers the point that radio still has 90% reach. Even though the numbers may be small, there is 90% reach in America and reach in television continues to decline. Historically, advertisers have paid more for less in television. And I think Peter’s analysis would say that we’re doing pretty good on pricing versus where audience has gone. So that’s a world we’re living in And I don’t know what the answer is. Nobody except Netflix is making money in streaming right now, maybe Discovery turns the corner here.
I think they were supposed to turn the corner this quarter, next quarter. But people are starting to dial back on their investments in streaming. Radio is kind of hanging in there. But I — there was a time when I was a lot more worried about radio and I was really good that — I felt really good that we were in the cable television business. Today, I feel really good that we’re diversified among all of these things and radio feels like it’s hanging in there. And we’re making our cable TV business hang in there right now with the way that we’re managing it. But I do feel like we need to do something strategic there, whether it’s picking up more distribution, programming investments, some sort of consolidation opportunity because that landscape is changing.
