We reported earlier that former CBS Radio President/CEO Dan Mason is now an iHeartMedia senior advisor. The hire is strategic for several reasons, industry experts tell us.
For one thing, Mason can take some of the operational load off CEO/Chairman Bob Pittman and President/COO/CFO Rich Bressler, “who have their hands full” dealing with lawyers at the moment, Patrick Communications Managing Partner Larry Patrick tells us in an interview.
Speaking with Mason recently, Patrick noted that Mason won’t be involved in the day-to-day operations, but rather, can “set his own agenda,” be that meeting with the FCC or the RAB or NAB on iHeart’s behalf.
It’s “good for the industry to keep him involved and very good for iHeart to have a major league slugger” like Mason helping iHeart, Patrick said.
In the announcement about Mason, Pittman stated he’s known Mason for “decades,” and “given his long and deep relationships with the broadcast industry,” both he and Bressler feel Mason is ideally suited to “establishing deeper and more constant communications” with radio representatives.
Calling Mason “one of the giants of the radio industry,” Bob Heymann of Media Services Group told us a few years ago Pittman and Mason were on an NAB panel featuring “their early history as ‘jocks’ on the air. I was struck by how good their relationship seemed and by their mutual respect for each other.”
Other sources told us, too, the hire is a smart move on iHeart’s part. “It can only help,” said one of them, while another tells us Mason can help iHeart represent the company’s position on issues like AM improvement or NextRadio, for example.
Mason will maintain an office in New York City from which he’ll also do his work now that he’s also chairman of the Broadcasters Foundation of America.
