Commercial radio revenues down 10% in 2009

UK commercial radio revenues were down 10% to £500 million last year, according to the RadioCentre’s chief executive.

Speaking to the House of Lords communications committee, Andrew Harrison said commercial radio revenues have fallen to £500 million from a peak of £620 million following a 6.4% drop in 2008, according to reports.

As a result, Harrison called for commercial broadcasters to be relieved of having to broadcast on both analogue and digital radio, which he said is costing the industry as much as £70 million a year.

The upcoming digital switchover, which will see national, regional and local stations move from FM and AM to digital, is likely to save the sector more than £30 million a year.

Harrison claims the current digital switchover date of 2015 is not an impossible target, although the DAB network needs to be improved for it to be a real possibility, he said.

“Setting a target date has been helpful in terms of galvanising the industry,” Harrison said. “Our aspiration is to do it as quickly as possible.”

However, the biggest challenge is getting more than 50% of listening to digital platforms, Harrison added.  This has to happen within the next three years if the 2015 target is to be met.  It currently stands at 21.1%.

Harrison denied that the average cost for switching from analogue to digital would cost around £200 per household.  Instead, he predicted that the average cost would be more like £50 to £60.