I notice this article from Media in Canada, showing an 8.3% increase in radio advertising in radio advertising in Canada for the upcoming Q308 time period.

The industries with biggest increases included:  Restaurants, Alcoholic Beverages, Financial Services, Retail and Automotive.

What’s great to hear is 8 quarters of continued growth in radio advertising… for a media type that has been in decline in general, this is very positive news.

And although this information and trending is for Canada, my hope is that the US marketplace will begin to follow suit in due course.

So what might be driving these increases?  A couple of thoughts:

1. Inventory – TV inventory in general has been tight… radio inventory has been easier to obtain.  So hitting campaign GRPs… I can see agencies and clients moving quickly to radio to make up GRPs
2. Cost – when demand exceeds supply, price goes up (sometimes waaaayyyyy up).  That being said radio is relatively cheap on a per GRP rate vs. TV.
3. Creative – radio commercials are extremely cheap from a production perspective and I don’t know many clients who have seen increases in budgets these days.  If anything, most are trying to reduce creative/production costs in order to increase the amount of working media.
4. Viability – radio is still a viable medium… challenged yes, but also viable.

Scott