Radio: The Lintas Media Guide 2006

According to The Lintas Media Guide 2006, the total advertising media spend has grown by 15 per cent over the past year, reaching a figure of Rs 15, 941 crore. Radio as a medium grew in reach, time spent and therefore revenues, as more and more advertisers saw merit in using it.

The medium is poised for whopping growth. Private Radio FM Phase II bids for 338 FM stations across 91 cities for a period or ten years licensing will get cleared at the end of this year and transmission will begin in 2007. The first list of 70 companies and second list of 14 companies also includes clothing outfits, dairy product manufacturers, consultancy firms, trading establishments, construction and real estate companies.

International players like BBC, Germany’s DeutscheWelle, Malaysia’s Measat, Virgin and Star are interested in picking up equity too. BBC’s proposal of a 20 per cent holding in Radio Mid-Day has been cleared by FIPB. Red FM has also been sold to NDTV and Malaysia-based Astro.

Third-party monitoring is now available in the industry. It monitors 13 radio stations across the four metros. The top advertisers were local advertisers and independent retailers accounting for 75 per cent spends, followed by TV channels promotions at 13 per cent.

However, research available is limited to DAR studies done by MRUC in Mumbai and Delhi and ARU (AIR) across their centres. The other data sources for analysis are IRS and NRS.

However, the heavyweight government-run AIR, continued without much fanfare to serve programming in 24 languages, 146 dialects, 215 broadcasting centres with 144 medium frequency (MW), 54 high frequency (SW) and 139 FM transmitters. It accounts for 91.42 per cent area and 99.13 per cent people coverage.