ISBA Conference: Radio Action Group

Andrew Robertson, Corporate Marketing Manager of the Bradford & Bingley Building Society, said that the radio medium has gained respectability even though it only covers 4% of advertising revenue. The Radio Action Group (RAG) was set up in MAY 1995 by the ISBA in recognition of this. It was felt that as radio is growing fast the Broadcast Action Group could not devote enough time to it. Since it has been set up, RAG has built up a large membership of ISBA members who are interested in the medium.

Summarizing the year, Mr Robertson said that one of the main points of concern in the last year is the growing amount of radio advertisers who are spending large amounts on advertising. Also the introduction of the RACC (Newsline 02/07) was on the agenda with the feeling that it recognized “the coming of age of radio”, with the ability to exploit the medium to its full potential. In contrast to this, it was also felt that it is yet another regulator with the emphasis for conflict with the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre.

Andrew Robertson pointed out to advertisers that advertisements should be kept fresh and should let the listener come to the point where they are not hearing the same advertisement over and over again. An example to overcome this was Capital Radio’s discounts for multi copy campaigns. He also said that high costs to run a single campaign was a disincentive for multiple campaigns.

RAJAR’s criticized pre-list diary (Newsline 04/01) method also came under scrutiny. With the growth of radio stations, pre-listing methodology became nearly unusable. New methodologies are being developed to satisfy both the BBC and commercial radio with RAJAR now using the old pre-list diary (Newsline 25/03) for the remaining two years of its contract.

Finally, Mr Robertson mentioned the decision by EMAP to place all of its stations with Capital Radio’s MSM (Newsline 16/04). This gave Capital 61% of the national radio advertising revenue and, with the demise of the IRS, gave the Capital Radio Group dominance over the market. The problem with this is that with only 4% of total advertising revenue coming from radio, if Capital or MSM “start messing people about,” the only ones that will suffer is the radio medium.

The speech was concluded with the statement:

“…if ISBA members have an interest in the medium and there are lots that spend seven figures on it, come and give us (RAG) the benefit of your views and ideas.”