MarketWatch reports CBS Radio is garnering a larger share of digital advertising on the strength of improving online ratings, CBS Radio CEO Dan Mason said.
Though CBS Corp.’s CBS radio unit is experiencing some of the same overall weakness in ad sales that has plagued all media during the current economic downturn, the company is making important strides in the online arena, Mason told MarketWatch. "Advertising is going through some difficult times now," Mason said. "There’s been a lot of talk that some of that [traditional] advertising has migrated to the digital world. And we’ve seen the growth in our own numbers."
Since June, when CBS Radio combined its stations with AOL’s online radio offerings in one portal, CBS Radio’s audio streams have had a huge boost in listenership.
From May to June, CBS Radio’s audio streams posted a 65% increase in cume.
The company’s streams garnered the highest cume of any online radio entity during the most recent Arbitron Online Radio Ratings survey, generating more than 1.9 million listeners from Monday to Sunday, 6 a.m. to midnight, during June.
At five CBS Radio stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the combined weekly audience jumped nearly 50% in July compared to figures for the week before the AOL launch.
"The message for advertisers is to look at how we package and display content, and put it across various platforms," Mason told MarketWatch, adding that CBS Radio stations are now available on the Apple iPhone, as well.
