With terms like “economic headwinds” and “choppy ad markets” being used to describe advertising challenges in 2023, there were still some encouraging signs for radio revenue last year.
According to a report from Kagan Research, AM/FM revenue in 2023 was down slightly, dropping 1.5%. In total, the industry brought in $15.15 billion in advertising revenue during the calendar year.
“The radio station business has been challenged to remain relevant and part of national ad budgets, although it is still relatively strong in the local ad markets,” said Kagan Research Senior Research Analyst Justin Nielson, per Inside Radio.
“Radio ads are predominantly local and focused on the auto, retail, travel, and entertainment categories, which have been under pressure from inflation and a higher interest rate environment over the past couple of years,” he continued.
In its forecast for 2024, Kagan Research shared that local advertising will drop by just under one percent to $11.8 billion. While that figure is basically $1 billion larger than revenue collected during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it’s $2 billion off where the industry was before the pandemic hit.
