RAB: Digital Ad Revenue Now 10% of Radio’s Total

According to the Radio Advertising Bureau, with help from new research from Borrell & Associates, in 2019 radio’s digital ad revenue topped $1 billion for the first time and now totals 10% of radio’s overall revenue.

The Radio Advertising Bureau stopped reporting overall revenue in 2016. BIA has been providing the industry with revenue numbers ever since. In 2018, according to BIA, radio’s over-the-air revenue was $13.3 billion with digital at $923 million. BIA also projected that radio’s digital total would hit $1 billion by 2020. Digital revenue has been radio’s biggest growth segment for several years.

The joint RAB/Borrell report released Wednesday states that the $1 billion in digital revenue makes up 10% of radio’s overall ad revenue. That would put radio’s overall advertising revenue at $10 billion, $3 billion less than what BIA reported for 2018 and way down from the years 2011-2015 when the RAB reported radio revenue at over $17 billion. Back in 2006 the RAB reported radio’s revenue at $21.7 billion.

The RAB/Borrell report states that local radio stations grew digital revenue 25% in 2019 and are forecast to grow of 29% in 2020. Borrell & Associates CEO Gordon Borrell says the additional digital revenue is coming to radio from print and other broadcast competitors selling digital to local businesses.

The report showed that the average station made $299,213 in digital revenue in 2019, and the average market cluster $1.3 million. The average revenue for the top 5 performers ranged from $664,651 for top performing clusters in the smallest of markets to $17.1 million in the largest.

The findings are a part of the RAB and Borrell’s 8th annual report, “Digital Sales Skyrocket, Hitting $1 Billion.” It is being released today to RAB members.

The report analyzes online ad revenue from 3,488 radio stations and responses from 1,006 local radio buyers and a survey of 208 radio managers.