Sapna Nair
Media

<FONT COLOR="#FF0033"><B>Radio AdEx:</B></FONT> Radio advertising grows by 33%; Mumbai gets lion’s share

The latest AdEx India report suggests that radio advertising has grown by a significant margin over last year and that the FM stations based in Mumbai have got the maximum revenue share

Radio is emerging as a most sought after medium today and the recent AdEx statistics corroborate that premise. AdEx India (a division of TAM Media Research in technical collaboration with AirCheck USA) has done a comparative study of the changing spending patterns on radio by advertisers from the first quarter of 2005 to the first quarter of 2006 across the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

According to the AdEx data, there has been a growth of 33 per cent in advertising spends on radio between January and March 2006, as compared to the corresponding period in 2005. The reason, according to leading media planners, is the gradually increasing credibility of the medium.

“FM stations have been around for about four-five years now. Earlier, there were a lot of misgivings about the medium and whether it would deliver. But now, it is finding its place,” says Jyoti Bansal, vice-president, MPG.

According to Lynn de Souza, director, media services, Lintas India, “Since the launch of good private FM radio channels around the country, the medium has doubled in reach in the areas where FM is available, so naturally, advertisers have begun to see the merits of the medium.”

Another factor that could have contributed in the increase in spends is the cost-effectiveness of the medium. Like a senior media planner explains, “In the cost of one insertion in ‘The Times of India’, Mumbai, we can undertake two weeks of activity on a radio channel.”

The AdEx report also brought to light the fact that the Mumbai radio stations have got the maximum share of advertising spends – 39 per cent of the overall revenue pie. The second largest spends have been on the radio channels in Delhi (37 per cent), followed by Kolkata (14 per cent) and Chennai (10 per cent).

There has been a slight drift in the average duration of radio advertisements over the first quarters of the years, 2005 and 2006, across the four metros. From January to March 2005, the average duration of an ad was 24 seconds. That figure continued to decline gradually till August 2005, but then rose to 23 seconds this quarter.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!

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