Commercial Radio Sees Highest Ever First Quarter Adspend

Commercial radio has seen advertising expenditure rise to record levels, with £138.9 million being spent on the medium in the first three months of this year, according to the latest data from the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB).

The figures represent a 2.3% increase on the same period the previous year and take first quarter adspend to the highest level ever recorded.

According to the RAB, the strong growth has been enabled by FMCG companies such as Proctor and Gamble, Lever Feberge and Nestlé, increasing their investment in radio by 69%, 35% and 20% respectively over the last twelve months.

This helped total revenue for the year ending March 2003 to reach £566 million, an increase of 3% on the same period the previous year. Sponsorship and promotions continued to perform strongly and retained double digit growth over the twelve months to March, with activity worth almost £72 million.

Commenting on the figures, Mark Middlemas, radio trading co-ordinator at Universal McCann said: “The radio industry’s ability to demonstrate effectiveness at driving sales has no doubt been a key driver to this continued revenue growth during tough times for the media industry.”

Michael O’Brien, director of marketing operations at the RAB, added: “The recently launched research study, Radio: The Sales Multiplier (see

The latest RAJAR data for the first quarter of 2003 shows that all national commercial radio saw its weekly reach increase by 8.4% period on period to almost 11.3 million, up from 10.4 million in the same period the previous year (see RAJAR Results Q1 2003 – National Commercial Radio Improves Reach).

RAB: 020 7306 2500 www.rab.co.uk

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