Commercial Radio Australia says radio revenues surged 17% for the month of August 2010 compared to the same month in 2009. A hot political season is partially responsible for the improved performance.
The industry pulled in just over $59M for the month, compared to about $50M a year earlier.
CRA CEO Joan Warner commented, “The Federal election has had an impact on revenue figures for radio and this has proved very positive in terms of advertising spend for August.”
Brisbane is an Australian political battleground this time around, and it rode that status to a 25.4% revenue increase to $9.7M. But all five main metros participated, according to Mumbrella. Perth was up 24.4% to $7.92M; Sydney was the overall cash leader with $18.3M on a $14.85% gain; Melbourne was up 14.45% to $17.7M; and Adelaide was up $12.4% to $5.49M
The Australian notes that the August surge greatly improved on a respectable gain of 6% in July. However, YTD revenues are still only up 2% over 2009, reaching $647M thus far.
RBR-TVBR observation: Radio is radio, wherever it is located, and people do not throw away their advertising money on media that fail to produce. Good radio revenue news from other lands is good news for radio in general, wherever it is located.
