Radio Advertising Bureau President and CEO Erica Farber opened the 2013 RadioShow this week, saying the industry is healthy. Here are some of the highlights of her speech.
I’ve been at the RAB for a little more than a year and a half and during this time I have seen the impact of positive energy across the industry. Radio continues to be a healthy industry at $17.6 billion. Interestingly enough, it is still greater than some of the newer area of business like Online Video at $2.1 billion and Mobile at $2.9 billion. And unlike some other media, radio has taken an aggressive stand and taken advantage of technology to deliver content listeners want, in whatever format they want and when they want it. And advertisers recognize the importance of delivering their ad messages across all of radio’s platforms including radio’s fastest growing segment – Digital.
Reaching a high of $767 million in 2012, Digital grew thirteen percent to $401 million by the first-half of this year – that’s over eighty percent higher than the first half of 2009.
Communications, Financial, Automotive, TV/Networks/Cable, and Restaurants continue to be radio’s top spending categories. Radio has also realized growth from advertisers in mid-tier categories like Professional Services and Casinos. We need to continue to position radio to capture dollars from new categories as well as identify new dollars from existing advertisers.
We have a great opportunity right now with consumer messaging regarding the Affordable Care Act, estimated to reach $1 billion by 2015 according to Kantar Media. Some of you have already taken a first step. Nearly five hundred people attended the RAB webinar last month focused on how to develop and uncover new and evolving revenue streams from the upcoming changes in healthcare legislation. And many of you attended today’s session on Healthcare advertising as we learned what we need to do to capture our fair share.
Our goal at the RAB is to provide the resources and information our members need today, tomorrow and long-term. Our successful CRM tool, Account Manager, has fifty-one hundred users, helping sales people and sales managers manage their businesses. Available on mobile devices and fully integrated with RAB research databases…
According to NPD Group’s Annual Music Study, broadcast AM and FM radio stations are the still the top choice for both core and casual music fans. Specifically, ninety-five percent of music buffs tune into broadcast radio as their top choice for music content.
Radio’s positive momentum in delivering content, like news, music and information, across additional platforms and devices will continue as NextRadio hits the market. This hybrid radio takes broadcast radio’s efficiency combined with interactive capabilities to create a content rich listener experience with new advertising opportunities. Since it’s very recent launch, it has already been downloaded over twenty-five thousand time and over three-thousand stations have been tuned in coast-to-coast. We now have another exciting platform to take to our advertisers. And it should be noted that, according to Miller Kaplan data, the number one category spender in radio for the first half of this year is Communications /Cellular and the number eight in rank of overall top radio supporters for the second quarter was Sprint – who increased their support of our medium by one hundred and fifty three percent!
HD Radio receivers are continuing to be added by automakers to more and more models. Did you know there are now over fourteen million HD receivers in the marketplace? Every six seconds over thirty percent of all new cars are driving off one of your client’s car lots with an HD Radio! Thirty-three automakers have announced their plans to incorporate HD Radio technology in over one-hundred and seventy models by year-end with over eighty HD Radio receivers being included as standard equipment.
The Streaming Initiative Committee, which you will be hearing more about in the coming weeks, is rolling up its sleeves and taking a deep dive look into all aspects of streaming – definitions, delivery, metrics, etc. And this will be important to radio’s future especially as eMarketer projects that music listening via streams or downloads on smartphones will be used by thirty-three percent of the population or nearly one hundred and eight million people in 2017.
As an industry we must speak with one voice to deliver one important message: commercial broadcast radio is nearly eleven-thousand strong. And the diversity in radio’s programming is unquestionable. This medium allows marketers to reach their target audiences according to their lifestyles, interests, age groups and languages at any point in their day and most important closest to the moment they are about to make a purchase…
Enjoy the conference and remember. . . . Radio, it’s on!
You can hear replays of some of the conference highlights at www.radioshowweb.com.