Advertising revenue at metropolitan commercial radio stations is on the rise with some very promising results released from Commercial Radio Australia.

In the first six months of this year, revenue was up 7.1 per cent to $301 million from the same period last year.

CRA chief executive Joan Warner says the results are positive.

“Perth and Brisbane have performed strongly in the June half, and Sydney has come out of a weak December 2006 half with 5.3 per cent growth in the June half, so we are heading in the right direction and the market is quite positive.”

The second half of the year is expected to be even better on the back of spending on advertising in the lead up to the Federal Election.

The CRA figures also showed metropolitan radio advertising revenue rose 10.1 per cent in the month of June to $58.5 million, from the same month last year.

And for the 2006/07 financial year, revenue climbed 3.7 per cent to $619.5 million.

Warner highlighted the fact that ad revenue has increased each year over the last five years but stressed that there is still plenty of the advertising pie that radio does not get and that there is still a large gap between radio’s share of revenue and the amount of time people spend with radio compared with other media.