‘Marketers preferring local advertising’

Private FM operator Radio City expects the share of local advertising in revenues to rise further to 60 per cent in next two years on the back of growing preference of marketers to the medium.

“There is a growth in the local advertising side. A few years ago probably it was 70 per cent of national advertisers and 30 per cent of local advertisers. 

“Now it’s almost 50:50 in terms of national to local advertisers, but in some markets local is higher.

“In next two years, it should be probably 60 per cent for local advertisers,” Radio City CEO Abraham Thomas said.

He added that categories like real estate, education and wellness are using the local advertising effectively. “Interestingly, even national advertisers are realising that one common message across the country may not be the best thing to do, so they are now using radio like a local medium,” he said.

He pointed out that this year during the first half the e-commerce players shied away from advertising on radio. “There have been some changes, some categories like e-commerce have gone down but there are other categories which have come up. Last year e-commerce was a very big category on radio but this year, the first half, they weren’t as active but we have had other categories like retail, government, real estate, FMCG,” Thomas said.

The Jagran Group-firm Radio City, which operates in 28 cities, picked up 11 stations in the recent phase III auctions that it plans to launch in the next two to three months.

It acquired frequencies in Kanpur, Patiala, Patna, Jamshedpur, Ajmer, Kota, Bikaner, Nasik, Kolhapur, Udaipur and Madurai during the phase III radio auctions. 

“We are launching our phase III stations and we picked up 11 frequencies. The first launch is scheduled on October 10, which is Kanpur. Over the next 2-3 months we should be launching the other 10 stations as well,” he said.

With digital gaining momentum, Thomas said the company is in the process of launching apps for some of its popular shows.

“We don’t see digital as a threat. We see digital as another platform where our content can get consumed. We have been the first to invest in digital and created Planetradiocity, which has both music and non-music content.

Planetradiocity will now be available as an app. Babbar sher is another one which is in the pipeline. Lot of our properties are moving in the app ecosystem,” he said.