The outlook for radio is improving following the pandemic year in 2020, says Ciaran Davis, CEO of broacaster HT&E.
He released full year results showing a loss of $42.5 million as revenue fell 22% to $197.3 million in the 12 months to December.
But ARN is well positioned for the rising ad market.
"We think March could be on parity with last year, which is good," he told AdNews. "The briefing activity for quarter two is looking strong.
“Some categories are in growth, like banking, finance and government support.
“And the areas that are not quite coming back, particularly SME and direct, there are signs that they're looking more positive and how they're going to advertise into H2to next year."
“From where we were back in April-May last year we've come a long way. I think radio's strength is coming to the fore, particularly in a short market like this.
“People just aren't willing at the moment to commit to buy six month or 12 month contracts and lay down plans that way.
“But that's slowly starting to change. This is where radio is very powerful in that if you want to advertise this afternoon, we can get the ad recorded, we can get the creative done and you can get up on air.
“The frequency of ads that we play, the messaging that you can do, all those play into a short market like this, particularly a time and an order why everybody's looking at a retail message, as opposed to branding message.”
Radio audiences surged during the pandemic as people working home listened via apps, their laptops computers are home smart speakers.
“People just love their local breakfast personality, whether it's one of ours or on the rival network, they have an affinity to us.
“There was a view that radio listenership would suffer. Actually, what we saw was people switched to in-home because they wanted that sense of connection. They wanted that sense of companionship of normal routine from a trusted source that they know and love, and have grown up with.
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