Radio’s annual gala awards night the Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) is set for an earlier start this year, Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) announced, as tickets went on sale today for both the ACRAs and the National Radio Conference.

The 27^th ACRAs will be held on Saturday, 10 October at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre and the National Radio Conference will take place the day before on Friday, 9 October at Jupiters. 

CRA has launched the third phase of the industry-wide “Radio. It’s a Love Thing” brand campaign. Four new radio ads will debut this week across 261 metropolitan and regional commercial radio stations.

The 45 second ads highlight independent new research by Colmar Brunton*, demonstrating the significant transactional uplift and return on investment (ROI) for brands using radio advertising, both on its own and in combination with TV and online.

Australian Radio Network (ARN) has announced the appointment of Sarah Tinsley to the position of national Legal and Business Affairs Director.

Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) and Presslaff Interactive Revenue have released the second in the series of Finding Consumer Trend (FCT) reports (in detail here), offering insights into the lifestyle interests and spending intentions of regional radio listeners.
 

The Government has released a report, prepared by the Department of Communications, on the future directions for spectrum management that outlines recommended changes to improve Australia's spectrum management framework.

The three main recommendations are:

Australia’s leading ad agencies, radio stations and production studios are amongst the finalists for the Siren Awards Best Radio Ad of 2015. 

Comedy, emotion, outstanding voice over talent and clever use of sound effects are common elements included in the list of finalist ads, for products as diverse as tennis tickets and pest control, to women in engineering and cancer awareness.   

Chris Taylor and Andrew Hansen, best known as members of the comedy group The Chaser will host the new, less formal Siren Awards event at Bar 100 on Thursday 14 May. 

Commercial radio listeners are hi-tech, 'connected' and heavy users of all things online and mobile, as highlighted in the just-released Consumer Insights Report (Unleashing the Power of Radio), developed by Nielsen in collaboration with Commercial Radio Australia.

The findings show that radio consumers are spend-ready.

Three in five (59%) commercial radio listeners have made a purchase online in the past 30 days; and almost a quarter (23%) is spending in excess of $300 online every month

Digital radio listening has increased in the first survey for 2015 with 3.2 million people now listening  to radio each week using a DAB+ digital radio in the five metropolitan capitals, according to GfK figures released by Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) today in the DAB+ quarterly update. 
 

The best radio ads of 2014 will be battled out between leading ad agencies, radio stations and production studios as part of the national Siren Awards, and will be announced in Melbourne next month.

Sydney artist Iluka is one of 12 finalists in the ABU Radio Song Festival.
 
She was CRA’s entrant into the competition which aims to uncover the best unsigned original music across Asia and the Pacific and will be performing in Colombo, Sri Lanka on 23 May in conjunction with the RadioAsia2014 Conference.
 
The singer was selected after winning the First Break competition, organised by The Mushroom Group and CRA to unearth unsigned talent.