Radio Revenue Continues Slow Rebound

'12'-'17 Revenue in billions

PwC has issued its annual “Entertainment & MediaOutlook” report, which contains projections for online and offline media markets through 2017 across various components including advertising revenues and consumer spending. The outlook for traditional media markets is similar to previous forecasts in that TV and out-of-home advertising have the healthiest future, while radio continues to grow at a modest pace and the outlook for print continues to be dim, although losses may slow.

The US is easily the world’s biggest radio market, accounting for about half of global revenues. Last year, radio revenues in the US were estimated to be more than $19 billion, and that figure is expected to increase to $21.55 billion by 2017.

Satellite subscriptions are projected to be the key driver of radio revenue growth, with a predicted CAGR of 7.6%, compared to a modest 1.4% CAGR for radio advertising revenues. In fact, US satellite radio subscribers generated almost $3 billion in radio revenue last year. Satellite radio’s growth (from advertising and subscriptions) means that it is expected to increase from 15% of all US radio revenue last year to 20% by 2017.

Overall radio revenues have rebounded after bottoming out at $17.8 billion in 2009, but aren’t expected to reach 2008′s levels until 2016.

Marketing Charts provides the following look at some of the highlights for each of the major traditional media markets (note that all figures are constant to this year):