Advertisers tune into new option with lower rates compared to other media. According to data from the Pan Arab Research Centre (Parc), ad spend on radio nearly doubled during the first three months of the year compared with the tally for the same period last year.
That it comes amidst a still soft advertising market for print and television media makes radio's recent gains all the more starker. This obviously translates into the sweetest of music for local radio stations.
"Radio traditionally was seen by [ad] agencies as the ‘rounding off media', i.e., allotment to radio represented the leftover residual budgets of clients," said Vikram Dhar, head of radio at GN Broadcasting, which owns Radio 1 and Radio 2 and, more recently, acquired the marketing rights for 106.2 and UAQ 97.8.