Survey: Radio Station Local Web Revenues Up 16%
According to a Borrell Associates survey that analyzes web revenues for local media properties, web growth for radio stations web sites grew 16.4% to $220 million in 2008. This versus $189 million in 2007. Borrell expects local web revenue to grow 26% in 2009 to $277 million in local online advertising.
While Yellow pages and newspaper companies crashed into bankruptcy and radio and television station revenues hit the brakes, their online hybrids zipped right along, says Borrell. Many of them saw strong double-digit growth in their online revenues. Nexstar Broadcasting and Yellow Book even saw triple-digit growth.
Last year $12.6 billion was spent in online advertising by local advertisers. Sales were dominated by pure-play Internet companies with no ties to legacy media -- the likes of Google, Local.com, Interactive Corp., Marchex, ReachLocal and many others. However, for the first time since since 2001, pure-play companies lost ground. The second-biggest shareholder, newspaper companies, effectively arrested their online share decline in 2008 after losing an average of four points per year since 2005.
The importance of online advertising to these legacy media companies intensified in 2008. Yellow Pages companies averaged nearly 11% of their gross revenues from online sales, while newspapers saw 7% and radio and TV stations 3.4% each. This dependence is likely to climb, bringing their online ventures into even sharper focus as they find ways to give the pureplay companies a run for their money.
