Commercial radio had its biggest year ever in 2021, generating £718.7m in advertising revenue and beating its previous record of £713.6m (2018), according to the latest data from Radiocentre.
The radio industry body said that last year's best-ever performance was driven by a 25% year-on-year bounceback from 2020, when the world was reeling from the outbreak of Covid.
Not surprisingly, digital formats were the fastest-growing and clearly most attractive to advertisers, representing a total of about 10% of total revenue.
The highest-spending industry sectors continued to be leisure, government, financial services and automotive. However, radio was boosted by an 87% growth in adspend from travel and transport brands – a clear sign of people heading out of their homes and returning to a relative sense of normality. Spend from these advertisers almost doubled, from £32.9m in 2020, to £51.0m in 2021.
2021's ad revenue resurgence was also thanks to big growth from a number of specific brands: online car marketplaces WeBuyAnyCar and Cinch, supermarkets Tesco and Sainsbury's, and tech companies Samsung and Amazon.
The news comes a week after the latest Rajars revealed that LBC had reached a record high of 3.2 million listeners a week, having accrued 151,000 new listeners in the three months from 20 September to 19 December 2021. TalkRadio experienced a similar boost, while Times Radio sank.
Overall, Rajar figures showed that commercial radio increased its share of total listening from 47.1% in the third quarter of 2021 to 48% in the final three months of the year.
Ian Moss, Radiocentre's chief executive, said: "It is fantastic to see revenues at a record high this year particularly after a challenging couple of years. These figures show radio has a really strong foundation to build on as we come out the other side of the pandemic and demonstrates that investment in digital platforms continues to pay off."
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