Traditional radio is still massively trumpeting over internet streaming radio in terms of ad dollars, according to the latest annual report from professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). And this is expected to continue.
The current projection from PwC for the next five years sees internet radio going form $60 million ad dollars in 2014 to $146 million in 2019.
Terrestrial radio is still millions ahead with the forecast set at going from $1,062 million in 2014 to $1,185 million in 2019. Internet radio is expected to be just 12 per cent of its terrestrial equivalent by 2019.
The streaming space in Australia is strong though. Megan Brownlow, editor of the report, said: “Streaming radio’s really doing very well and we’ve got big players here with very attractive offerings.
“ARN did that great deal with iHeartRadio, Pandora’s here and rapidly growing and hiring people, we’ve got Spotify here and so they have really great data about users. Because so often our consumption of music is mobile, including location data.”
One of the biggest bits of news coming out of the report was the programmatic trading of radio. In the internet radio space, the report predicts internet radio will have higher margins on programmatic trading than other parts of the internet “due to the finite supply of audio inventory and the limited number of players in the space”.
However, the report pointed out not everyone is excited about programmatic radio, as managing director of Pandora Internet Radio, Jane Huxley, was reported as saying programmatic trading will be a “race to the bottom”.
“We have a data-driven premium audience at Pandora, and we are not interested in selling that at a cheap price, which is what I think a lot of programmatic is doing,” she said.
