Lots happens in the radio industry each week so here’s a summary of the week we just enjoyed.
Here’s What Happened
Everyone knows how important ads are for the radio industry. If we don’t have brands wanting to advertise, then the whole radio industry falls apart. Sure Bauer might still make a few Bob off the cash machine, but it’s certainly not enough to keep the lights on.
Thankfully, Radiocentre Ireland revealed this week that the radio advertising market is continuing to grow. they released some fascinating figures for q1 2023 showing that everything is still operating as planned.
- We had €30.8m in spot revenue, that’s an increase of 6% from the same period last year. It’s good to see the main supply of revenue is continuing to grow.
- Branded content such as outside broadcasts and sponsorships was the only category to see a drop. The drop was only 1% and the category still brought in €6.4m, but it’s going to be worth keeping an eye on this in the coming months.
- Digital revenue resulted in the biggest growth. This important segment grew by a huge 49% to €1.7m, which is great to see as it will be very important over the next few months and years. The industry is changeing and getting ready for a more digital future, so this growth is a good sign for the long term viability of radio.
Ultimately this is just 3 months, but it’s still good news. For a lot in radio we might not think about these details day to day, but it’s critically important for this to continue if the radio industry wants to compete in the evolving media landscape.
Broadcaster Dave Cronin hosted his last show on Beat 102 103 yesterday, after announcing he’s leaving the station.
Dave has been a presenter on Beat since 2012, and has hosted a number of shows on the station during that time. Most recently he’s been the presenter of Beat At Work, which is the stations mid morning show. He is also a continuity announcer for Virgin Media Television.
In really exciting news for Dave he’s now heading over to make his mark on the UK, which is a big step up from the humble south east of Ireland. it’s unclear if he will remain at VMTV, but his Instagram announcement only refers to Beat.
Very best of luck to Dave from us at Radio Land, hopefully we’ll be hearing you on a station in the UK really soon.
Ray Darcy is looking for a brand to go running with him.
Run With Ray is looking for a sponsor. This on air event encourages Radio 1 listeners to get out for a run which is great for people’s mental and physical health.
The sponsorship is over 6 weeks, with a week of outside broadcasts at the end where the show will hit the road to run with listeners across the country.
It’s not the only campaign like this on the Ray Darcy Radio Show as the programme usually acts as a companion to the popular operation transformation TV series. Operation transformation didn’t have a sponsor for its 2023 run, but it’s been a cash machine for RTÉ in the past. The department of health sponsored two past seasons of the show at a cost of €561,000. While this would be expected for an event across TV, Radio and Online, the run with Ray series will be much cheaper as it’s for the most part a radio only campaign.
RTE are looking for a fee of €25,000 to sponsor Run with Ray, which is a much lower bar to entry compared to a huge show like operation transformation. Full details of the sponsorship can be found below.
It’s great to see radio helping to try keep people healthy, the benefits of something like this are potentially huge, so hopefully we’ll see a brand support the initiative.
Quick Bits
Learning Waves is bringing back their Journalism graduate program for 2023
Tomás Mac Ruairí, secretary and broadcaster at Raidió na Life has passed away
The Dawn Chorus 2023 is airing next weekend
The Media Awards took place this week
Coimisiún na Meán is hiring new staff
Today FM are giving away a €1,000 pre paid credit card with thanks to virgin media
The final event for this years Irish Music Month has taken place
And that’s the summary for this week. Come back to radio land next week for more radio news📻 and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram for extra stories.
Transparency
A previous version of this article had the wrong air date for the Dawn Chorus. This has now been fixed. Thanks to Brian Greene for flagging the mistake.