Advertising revenue for metropolitan radio fell by 6.1% to $760.8 million in the 2019 calendar year, according to Deloitte data.
The figures, released by industry body Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), show all markets dropping in the December quarter, with Melbourne the hardest hit. The city was down 10.8% to $60.84 million, while Sydney slipped 9% to $57.12 million.
Brisbane dropped by 6.5% to $30.16 million, Adelaide 5.1% to $16.57 million and Perth 13.2% to $23.36 million.
“The results reflected a challenging end to the year for radio and the media industry as a whole, with weak business confidence and the severity of the bushfire crisis having flow-on effects on ad spend,” says CRA CEO Joan Warner.
While the December quarter was up 3.6% compared to September, it was down 9.4% from $207.53 million during the same three months the year before.
The figures follow a trend across all media of weak revenue figures, with the last Standard Media Index (SMI) figures showing the 15th consecutive month of negative growth for the advertising market. As a sign of the tough economic conditions for media owners, radio companies such as Nova, ARN and Southern Cross Austereo have all joined the Advertise or Die campaign to encourage brands to spend more on their platforms.
Warner hopes this effort, as well as the next stage of development of the automated trading platform RadioMATRIX, will help return the sector to growth bn 2020.
The Deloitte figures report actual revenue received by metropolitan commercial radio stations in the five major capital city markets and include agency and direct ad revenue.
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