NewsLine Column: Blowing The Radio Trumpet
Radio advertising is responsible for 7% of all display advertising revenues, according to the latest figures from Nielsen Media Research, up from 6.8% on the previous twelve months. There are many valuable lessons that new media could well learn from radio, Ewan Darby, Strategic Planning Manager, from Nielsen Media Research, explains…
October 2002 has been a busy month in Media. Agencies and TV contractors are in the middle of their annual negotiations and probably for the last time in their present guises. Every month we hear of more mergers and acquisitions either in the media owner or agency market, or the formation of global negotiating networks with billions of pounds worth of expenditure with which to negotiate the best possible deals. With ITV’s share of commercial impacts diminishing monthly and the multi-channel market highly fragmented, advertisers are naturally turning to alternative media solutions, be that Outdoor, Consumer Magazines or Internet…
…or radio…
According to the latest Nielsen Media Research figures, Radio in the UK is now responsible for 7% of all display advertising revenues, up from 6.8% on the previous twelve months. Radio has grown 3% while all display revenues have grown 0.2% and two top 10 Radio agencies have achieved double digit % increases on the medium in the last 12 months. With so much talk in the media world about decreasing revenues, restricted budgets and advertiser prudence, this is fantastic not just for the Radio contractors, but also for the advertisers that have invested in the medium – it shows they have recognised a growing market through which they can have an intimate relationship with their target audience.
Radio has traditionally been one of the most transparent mediums. It trades in an open fashion providing PCA as a matter of course, it opens its self for monitoring by Nielsen Media Research, RAJAR is still the most detailed audience research in the world (irrespective of present questions about accuracy) and it has achieved significant development of advertiser categories since the mid nineties. Radio has grown from a 2% medium to a 7% medium in little over six years – a considerable achievement and one that can be attributed to its open trading policy and transparent nature as well as the diligence of the RAB.
When Radio was first monitored back in the 1990’s (by what was then Register MEAL and MMS), there were a number of industry sceptics doubtful over the value of Advertising monitoring. There were fears that revealing revenue estimations to the media market would damage stations by showing the competition what their advertiser base was. Since those early monitoring days, we have been delighted with the growth in the number of commercial radio stations and the growth in Radio advertising. Radio has matured into a strong and vibrant medium, attracting considerable advertising budgets along the way.
There are many valuable lessons that new media could well learn from radio, not least self-promotion. The latest RAB commercials featuring the character Roy Mallard (made famous in the TV series, People Like Us) are wonderfully compelling listening. It’s great to see the RAB exploiting the unique relationship with listeners in their latest campaign – I wonder if we can talk about other mediums self promotion in the near future?
If you would like to respond or make further comment on this or any other NewsLine article, please email [email protected]
Subscribers can access previous articles by NewsLine columnists in the Columnist Archive – click button on left.