A report published in The Australian shows that Radio is by far the cheapest main media option for reaching large audiences.

The report looked at what advertisers will be paying in 2005 and found Commercial Radio’s cost per thousand listeners reached will be $7.71, less than half that of TV, which was second cheapest at $17.54. However, that was chicken feed compared to Cinema, the category “winner”, at $208.23 which equates to about 21 cents per individual.

While The Australian article focused on advertiser unrest at the rising cost of television, it says little of newspapers which are shown to have a CPM of $45.52 in the full list below.

Cinema $208.23
Newspapers $ 45.52
Magazines $ 29.86
Outdoor $ 21.67
Internet $ 19.78
Television $ 17.54
Radio $ 7.71

The report also compared advertising rates in the Australasian region to the rest of the world and found Australian and new Zealand rates to be far higher – except for Radio and internet which are slightly cheaper.