Media Partners Asia managing director Vivek Couto predicts that radio will grow revenue from $13.7 billion to $20 billion across the Asian Pacific region in the next 5 years.
In an overview of media trends across the region, Vivek said linear broadcast tv is “important in India and China, but is facing headwinds in other countries across the region.” Most of the incremental growth in the next few years will come from growth in digital.
For radio “the opportunity is to reposition advertising into the digital market.”
“Growth will come from traditional advertising, but eventually that is expected to decline. Digital advertising will help radio to compete with other digital competitors such as Spotify. Digital subscriptions will supplement other types of revenue,” he said.
China, Korea, India and Australia will be the “significant growth countries” for audio in Asia, according to research by Media Partners Asia.
“The global digital giants are dominating revenue, so radio and audio must look at those companies to reposition their advertising platforms,” he said.
YouTube’s 1.2 billion users, especially across SouthEast Asia and India, are consuming content big and small screens, on phone screens as well as connected tv screens. “It is competing for living room attention.” Netflix will be the next challenger across the region for screen content. Prime, Disney and Spotify are also leading content platforms for vision and audio.
Vivek says “radio needs to define its place in comparison to these global players.” Localism is one way that can be achieved.
“Local platforms are also important across the region.
“These leading local audio companies illustrate how companies are creating content that is rooted in regional and local culture, which is an important differentiator,” he said.
Ai personalisation and the use of Generative Ai are two of the technology uses that will transform the audio industry, according to Vivek. “Ai lowers costs for DJs, jingles and personalisation, it enables smart targeting, real time translation, compliance and automation. These aspects of Ai will need to be included in your 5 year plans.”
Audio media companies are evolving to a hybrid of broadcast and digital audio. TV and Audio will face continued challenges to revenue unless they can identify new growth segments. “Much of the future revenue growth will come from digital subscriptions in tv and audio platforms,” he predicts.
Local content and cultural differentiation will be important to success in a more competitive environment. The content will be powered by Ai and new revenue will come from diversified monetisation through subscription audio platforms.
“Radio is not in decline, it is evolving and embracing digital innovation to deliver unique local content which the global digital tech giants cannot compete with.”
More reports from Radiodays Asia here.
Reporter: Steve Ahern