Digital, while still radio's smallest revenue category, was its biggest mover during the third quarter of 2013 and remained its fastest growing category, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.
Digital revenue hit $244 million in the quarter, up 19% from the same period last year, according to the RAB. Year to date, digital pulled in $645 million for the industry, up 15% from a year ago.
Erica Farber, RAB president and CEO, attributes the growth to a combination of general digital momentum and more aggressive sales efforts at some stations.
She says that digital as a percentage of overall revenue varies greatly between individual stations, with the highest in the 20% range and the lowest stations in the single digits.
Farber says many stations are now offering a much wider array of digital products as well, including some digital marketing services. "It's not about the banner ads," she says. "They're still being sold but that's not what the focus is."Meanwhile, radio is taking Pandora's sales incursion seriously, particularly in mobile, where Pandora reported it made $100 million in sales in the last quarter. But Farber adds, "We want to keep it in perspective. People are using Pandora or a pureplay differently than they consume broadcast radio."That difference is rooted in listeners' connection to broadcast radio's programming and live personalities, she says, which listeners don't expect from Pandora.
"So for advertisers that are looking to find a very targeted handful of people in a particular ZIP code in a market, I understand the consideration of a Pandora," she says. "But an advertiser who is trying to reach one to many is still going to consider very highly the use of radio."The industry's overall revenue hit $4.6 billion, up 1% from the third quarter of 2012, and reached $13 billion year to date, flat compared with last year.
The slight uptick was primarily due to a 1% rise in spot revenue compared with 2012. Spot hit 3.7 billion for the quarter and $10.4 billion for the year so far.
