The commercial radio industry earned a total of $675.08 million in metropolitan advertising revenue during 2010, a 7.8% increase on the previous year.

According to the 2010 Metropolitan Commercial Radio Advertising Revenue, as sourced by Deloitte, advertising revenue grew in all five metropolitan markets during 2010 compared to the same timeframe in 2009, with the strongest growth recorded in Perth.

Figures released today by Commercial Radio Australia show that:

–      Perth grew 9.59% to a total of $89.19 million for the 2010 year;

–      Sydney grew by 8.55% to a total of $211.15 million;

–      Brisbane was up 8.25% to $108.8 million;

–      Melbourne grew 7.05% to $203.2 million and

–      Adelaide was up 4.57% to a total of $62.6 million.

CRA’s Joan Warner says the good result for 2010 is a turnaround from the previous twelve months and means the industry finished the year on a positive note:

“The industry has worked hard to keep its message top of mind with advertisers over the past twelve months and this work will continue in 2011. However, the figures also show a slower month of December, which reinforces how competitive the media market is and how important it is to deliver the message that radio is an extremely effective and efficient advertising medium.”

Advertising revenue fell 1.71% for the month of December 2010 compared to the same timeframe a year earlier to a total of $53.22 million for the five metropolitan markets. Brisbane and Perth recorded growth for the month of December with Brisbane up by 1.54% to $9.04 million and Perth up by 2.21% to $7.78 million. The other three markets fell with Sydney down by 3% to $16 million; Melbourne down 2.9% to $15.35 million and Adelaide down 5.15% to $4.98 million.

The figures also show that the commercial radio industry recorded growth in metropolitan advertising revenue of 8.59% for the six months ended December 2010, compared to the same timeframe in 2009, to a total of $353.8 million.

Commercial radio continued to attract a strong audience in 2010, with the metropolitan surveys highlighting an average cumulative audience of 9.19 million each week during the year. This was 250,000 more people than in 2009, when 8.94 million people listened on average each week, and also up from 8.79 million in 2008 and 8.74 million people in 2007. On average, Australians spent over 16 hours per week listening to commercial radio during 2010, or 2hrs and 30 minutes per day.