iHeartMedia 2001 Annual Report Download - page 8

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8
Additionally, we seek to create situations in which we own more than one type of medium in the
same market. Aside from the provision of added flexibility to our clients, this “cross-ownership” allows
us ancillary benefits, such as the use of otherwise vacant outdoor advertising space to promote our
broadcasting assets, or the sharing of on-air talent across our broadcasting assets to promote one of our
live entertainment events or venues.
To support our radio broadcasting, outdoor advertising and live entertainment strategies, we have
decentralized our operating structure in order to place authority, autonomy and accountability at the
market level which provides local management with tools necessary to serve our clients. We believe that
one of our strongest competitive advantages is our unique blend of highly experienced corporate and
local market management. We believe that the combination of historically stable revenue growth within
the industries we operate, coupled with a fixed expense structure and minimal requirements for ongoing
capital expenditures, as well as our financial discipline, gives us an excellent forum in which to generate
free cash flow and provide value to our investors.
Radio Broadcasting
Our radio broadcasting strategy entails improving the ongoing operations of our existing stations,
as well as the acquisition of stations. Our acquisition strategy has created a national footprint that allows
us to deliver targeted messages for specific audiences to advertisers on a local, regional, and national
basis. We believe in clustering our radio stations in markets thereby allowing us to offer our advertisers
more advertising options that can reach many audiences. We believe owning multiple radio stations in a
market allows us to provide our listeners with a more diverse programming selection and a more efficient
means for our advertisers to reach those listeners. By clustering our stations, we are also able to operate
our stations with more highly skilled local management teams and eliminate duplicative operating and
overhead expenses. In addition to the economies of scale associated with our national footprint and our
clustering of stations in our markets, our management seeks to improve the performance of our existing
stations through effective programming, reduction of costs, and aggressive promotion, marketing, and
sales. By complementing our radio operations with our other businesses, we are able to increase revenue
and profitability through synergies such as cross selling and cross promoting, utilizing our outdoor
advertising and entertainment operations.
Outdoor Advertising
Our outdoor advertising strategy involves expanding our market presence and improving the
operating results of our existing operations. By acquiring additional displays in our existing markets and
expanding into new markets. We focus on attracting new categories of advertisers to the outdoor
medium through significant investments in sales, marketing, creative, and research services. We take
advantage of technological advances that increase our sales force productivity, production department
efficiency, and the quality of our product. We will continue to take advantage of the fragmented outdoor
advertising industry in our international markets, which presents us with opportunities to increase our
profitability both from our existing operations and from acquisitions.
Live Entertainment
Our recent entry into live entertainment operations allowed us to take advantage of the natural
synergies between radio and live music events and to gain immediate industry leadership. We can now
leverage our broadcasting assets to reach listeners who have an affinity for music to promote our live
entertainment events and ultimately increase ticket revenue. Our strategy involves improving operating
results driven primarily by our ability to increase the utilization of venues, the number of tickets sold per