Report: Radio Ad Spending Increased 22% In February


Before we allow the newspaper industry to control how strong radio is, how about this report to help pour a little positivity on their radio-is-dead narrative — and this data comes from outside the radio industry. According to Standard Media Index, radio advertising spending increased 22% in February, compared to February 2015. That increase was higher than the increase in digital media’s performance, which was up 21%. By the way, newspaper spending was down 17%.

In all, U.S. ad expenditures were up 10% in February. Television was up 5%. Out-of-home advertising was up 10%. SMI captures 80% of total national U.S. agency spend exclusively from the booking systems of five of the six global media holding groups, as well as leading independents. Digital now makes up 27% of total ad spend, rising by 3 points in February compared to 2015.

Internet radio spending was up 63%, social media sites increased 49%, and video sites were up 43%. The top advertiser categories in February were prescription pharmaceuticals (49%), fast food restaurants (30%), and food, produce, and dairy (27%).


  1. Let me put it another way:
    I believe radio is the most shoddily delivered, least exploited and least mature of all professional media.
    Nor is it about the glass being half empty or half full.
    The glass is, indeed, half full.
    But it’s half full of Flint, Michigan’s water.

  2. Shelly: Does that snide, superficial and juvenile comment also mean you can’t answer the question? Why, yes it does.

  3. Is Shelly really “Polyanna”?
    This “news”, by the way, is akin to celebrating that one of the canaries didn’t die.
    I might also ask of Shelly: What, specifically, has radio done to earn this increase?
    Meanwhile, up ‘ere where da sun don’ shine so much, we know better dan to go out on da hice widout da snowshoe.

  4. Ronnie hates it when you print good radio news, Ed. It means Ronnie’s doom and gloom and his solution of hiring him to solve non-existent crises goes up in smoke. “What hand did radio have in generating these numbers?”, he asks. Huh? I’d say all of it.
    And before a bean-counter gives the credit to the increase to political advertising….of course. Politicians know radio works. They buy a lot of it. As does Home Depot, Walgreen’s, Geico, McDonald’s and a host or other companies who know much more about media and advertising than Ronnie ever will. Follow the money, not the production guy from up ‘dere

  5. Does this mean CBS is snatching their properties back off the market?
    Are there high-fives this morning over to the corporate headquarters of Cumulus and iHeart?
    What hand did radio have in generating these numbers? If none, we are still at the mercy of relative economic and internal, strategic factors.
    If true, are these numbers, taken comparatively, any reason to get all up and sniffy?
    To those who would respond with enthusiastic, but vile criticism: Does Pollyanna live here?


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