Commercial Radio’s Revenue Falls
New figures show that commercial radio revenue in the UK was down more than 10% in the 12 months to the end of June.
Total UK radio revenue for April to the end of June 2008 – including national and local advertising and sponsorship and promotion – was £134.2 million, said a report on MediaGuardian.co.uk.
National advertising revenue fell 15.9% year on year to £71.5 million, while local revenue was down 8.4% to £37 million. However, sponsorship and promotion income was up 7.3% to £25.7 million.
Simon Redican, the managing director of the Radio Advertising Bureau, said: “We always knew this would be a tough quarter for all media, as recent results from ITV and the newspaper sector have shown.
“Indeed, all sectors have been finding it tough in recent months because of the credit crunch. Fortunately for radio, we’re well placed to bounce back.”
Redican added that commercial radio’s performance should be slightly better in the third quarter of 2008.
“I am not going to pretend we will be up [year on year] but we are doing better than we did in quarter two,” he said.
“I think any company in the UK will struggle to get any growth. We are starting to head into tough times.
“Our argument to advertisers is that radio is a good bet in tough times because it is more cost-efficient than other media and it is a very complementary media. Because we felt [the decline] earlier I like to think we reacted to it quicker.”
RAB: 020 7306 2500 www.rab.co.uk RadioCentre: www.radiocentre.org