Radio Hits The BRICs

Michael Hedges January 10, 2011 Follow on Twitter

Ah, the BRICs: Brazil, Russia, India and China. For several years these countries have come to symbolize rapidly developing economies. Not surprising, radio broadcasting is rapidly developing there, too.

Largely using data collected by pricewaterhousecooper (PWC) in the years 2005 through 2009 for 17 countries, UK media regulator OFCOM analysts dug out several surprises for a report released late last year. Not surprising was the precipitous decline in aggregated revenue, down 6.5% over four years. All revenue sources were considered, including advertising, license fees and subscriptions. Data wasn’t available for all 17 countries.

Broadcasters revenues rose most in India (209%), China (120%) and Brazil (82%). Canadian and Swedish broadcasters saw double-digit growth, 23% and 15% respectively. Radio revenue in Ireland rose 9%.

Suffering most were radio broadcasters in the US where revenues dropped 19% between 2005 and 2009. But the US broadcasters had, by far, the most revenue from all sources in 2009, nearly GB£11 billion. (The OFCOM report expressed values in GB£) German broadcasters turned over GB£3 billion and total revenue for Japanese broadcasters was GB£2.6 billion.

US broadcasters would have suffered more in 2009 had it not been for nearly GB£1.5 billion in satellite radio subscription fees. Similarly, in Canada – with total radio revenue growth of 5.3% between 2005 and 2009 – satellite radio subscription revenue (GB£131 million) accounted for 14.5% of total radio revenue in 2009. Subscription radio was not a factor in radio revenues for the other countries reported.

Listeners in Russia spent the most time by far with radio in 2009, 39.3 hours per week, according to data supplied to OFCOM by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Listening times in Poland and Ireland were the next highest at 32.9 and 31 hours, respectively. OFCOM estimated the Western European average time spent listening at about 21 hours, with Swedish and Spanish listening times falling significantly lower at 17.3 and 12.6 hours, respectively.

US and Canadian listening times in 2009 averaged 18.5 and 18.3 hours, respectively. Japanese listeners spent little time with radio stations, just 12.6 hours per week, the same as Spanish listeners.

Audience shares for public radio channels seem to rise or fall depending on funding. Swedish, German and UK listeners give more than half their listening to public broadcasting, 65%, 58% and 55%, respectively. License fee funding for radio accounts for more than half all radio revenues in Sweden (84%), Germany (80%), Japan (64%) and the UK (62%).

The BRICs countries do not fund public/state radio through a household license fee. In Australia, Canada and the US public funding for radio broadcasting is limited.

The report calculated per capita radio revenue from all sources for the 17 countries. Interestingly, advertising is the greatest source of revenue in four English-speaking countries: US (GB£30), Ireland (GB£25), Canada (GB£23) and Australia (GB£22). Ad spending on radio as a percentage of all ad spending was highest in Canada, the US, Ireland, Spain and Australia. Counting all sources, Ireland leads (GB£42), followed by Germany (GB£37), the US (GB£35), Sweden (GB£32) and Canada (GB£27).

The BRICs countries had the lowest radio revenue per capita: Brazil (GB£1.6), Russia (GB£1.3), China (GB£0.6) and India (GB£0.1). The countries with the lowest radio advertising percentage of all ad spending – less than 4% - were the UK, Sweden, Japan, India and Brazil. Considering factors like population and economic growth rates radio broadcasting the BRICs countries could have an interesting future.

Brazil has about 2,400 radio stations, mostly regional and local. National networks – private and State – dominate Russian radio broadcasting. India’s State broadcaster AIR is well funded and pervasive; private, commercial radio arrived in the mid-1990’s. And then there’s China.

OFCOM’s 419 page 5th edition of The International Communications Market 2010 was released December 2, 2010. Section 4 looked at radio and audio.

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