In one of the keynote events at Morning Show Bootcamp, iHeartMedia CEO Bob Pittman sat down with “The Woody Show” host Jeff ‘Woody’ Fife for a broad discussion of issues facing radio talent in 2023.

With much of the anxiety among air talent at the convention centering around the use of artificial voices on-air at the expense of humans, Pittman adamantly stated AI voices will not be used at the company to replace its talent stating, “Anybody who uses AI on-air is a fool. Once you lie to the audience you lose their trust” adding “Customers relate to human beings, you can’t trick people.” Pittman did then give an out saying he could see air talent utilizing an artificial version of a voice if the talent needed to “record 400 tags of a spot for different markets”.

Pittman was quick to note that there are many uses for AI at the company in making tasks easier noting examples like helping with sales proposals and music scheduling and that they will go ahead with those tools. He noted that all of those things will still requiring human intervention as many of the tools are not perfect. He cited an example of asking ChatGPT to write a bio of himself, which he stated was “mostly wrong.”

Asked about where the next generation of talent will come from, he gave an example from the start of his career in Brookhaven MS. “When I started, the station couldn’t afford people so they hired teenagers. Everyone of us was terrible but we got experience and I worry about where we are finding those people today and where we can start them,” he commented, “”We as an industry need to find where the next generation is coming from. It was great when we had a farm system and you got your chance. We have to work hard. We have to look harder, think harder, probably take more chances.”

Woody inquired about taking certain small market stations and loading them up with young talent giving them the opportunity to learn and experiment. Pittman shot that down as he stated it is still important to serve the audiences in those markets with the best quality product.

Asked about the emphasis ratings determining layoffs and whether other alternatives are out there, Pittman noted “Nielsen is the currency that the advertising community uses and accepts. We don’t judge a show book-by-book,” but because of 20% of their listening coming from digital platforms such as their iHeartRadio app they can monitor listening trends internally and make more well-informed decisions.

In terms of what can make a talent more valuable to the company, Pittman noted, “If people want to make more money, they need to figure out how we make money.” Telling the audience that learning how sales works and working with sales to bring revenue to the station is the most important thing. “Some people have poor ratings, but are great at generating sales. Some have great ratings, but we can’t monetize them.” He said talent should be creative and available if possible at all times to make things happen. “We don’t have huge production costs. We’re limited by creativity only,” commenting that sometimes a big idea will come to him or others in the company late at night and he’ll work immediately to get it going. “Urgency wins. I’m going to chase every great idea and convince them to do it for me.”