What did you wake up thinking about this morning? I wake up every day excited about the next challenge or opportunity that I’m going to face when I walk into the office at Clear Channel. The great thing about this company is that because we reach 240 million people a month, there is really no business in pop culture that we can’t be in. So every morning when I go online or I turn on the radio or I look at the newspaper, immediately ideas come to mind of how we can somehow interface at iHeartRadio or through our Clear Channel properties.
Describe a lesson learned from a failure. Some of the best jobs I’ve ever had in my life were those where you were allowed to fail. One that immediately comes to mind was when we were rebranding VH1 in the early ’90s. I thought that if we dropped all of the comedy and sitcoms and replaced it with music, that we would see the ratings pop immediately. And it backfired. I learned that the people who were there for the comedy left, and those who wanted VH1 to play music had yet to learn that we had switched formats. I learned that day that branding or building any business is all about the long game. And there are no shortcuts to real success. Tom Freston, who was running MTV Networks at the time, told me to just be patient and stick with my plan. And about a year later, it actually worked. Stay with your plan and people will come.
What will define your career in the coming year? I am very excited about how Clear Channel is moving from becoming solely a radio business and becoming an entertainment business. I am most excited about the fact that we had no content in television when I joined in 2011, and in 2014 we’ll have a minimum of seven shows on television and streamed online. And inside some of those platforms that we’re developing are some truly groundbreaking content plays that we think will have a huge impact on not only the audience but our revenue.
Who is your most important mentor, and what did you learn? I have two in business and one personal. [Clear Channel CEO] Bob Pittman made me a branding executive. He is the best in the business. From Tom Freston I learned to trust my own instincts and to not be afraid to make mistakes along the way. In my personal life, Paul Tudor Jones [founder/fund manager of the Robin Hood Foundation] taught me how to use my leverage in business to try and create a better life for those less fortunate.
Name a project you’re not affiliated with that has most impressed you in the past year. For the first time since the Roosevelt administration, all Americans will now have access to affordable health care. Also, the incredible impact of Instagram and Twitter’s move to visual media.
Name a desert island album. If I was truly stranded I would take my smartphone loaded with iHeartRadio. Because it’s the only place I could listen to “Blonde on Blonde” by Bob Dylan or the new Pharrell Williams track in the palm of my hand.