The recently presented Audify Annual Report 2023 brought a wealth of new information about the audio world, AV Director Roan van Parreren has highlighted the key insights, relevant to marketers, advertisers and media industry professionals in this article.
New listening research
The most important development last year was the revamped listening survey from Ipson/Kantar. Through the smartphone app, a close minute-by-minute monitoring of which station and platform is being listened to is being carried out. This gives the market detailed insights, which can be used to make even more efficient use of the medium. As a result, audio is proving to be a very dynamic landscape.
2023 was also the year which marked the FM auction. All commercial radio stations could bid for an FM lot. However, there was a maximum of three FM lots per sales house, which resulted in the entry of Mediahuis within audio. However, One Media Sales remains the responsible sales house for all Talpa and Mediahuis radio stations.
The image shows the current landscape of the two largest sales houses.
Key insights from the report are as follows:
- As many as 2,021 brands were active in radio in 2023.
- About 46% of all creative expressions were new expressions, most of which were heard in the month of November.
- The average length of radio spots in 2023 was 15.6 seconds, a slight increase from the previous year.
- The fourth quarter remains the quarter with the highest investments, mainly due to events such as Black Friday and the House of Representatives elections.
- Retail remains the industry with the highest audio investments, with the laundry and cleaning products industry being the biggest riser.
- With strong radio stations Radio538, Radio10 and Skyradio, OMS manages to keep the lead when comparing market share by sales house. With NPO's stations following suit. As shown below in the image.
- DPG gains market share after adding new radio station Joe to its portfolio.
Radio remains Mass Medium
With an average weekly reach of 84.6% among the target audience aged 13 and older, radio remains a mass medium. On average, these radio listeners tune into 16.3 different radio stations per year and 4.8 radio stations per month, indicating that audio is virtually ubiquitous in everyday life.
New research offers more accurate insights
Now that we can see listening behavior at the minute level, it is interesting to look at the market shares per week of the 5 largest stations. We already knew that theme weeks (Top4000, 80's week etc.) generate growth in market share (which therefore causes weekly fluctuations in market shares as above), but finally the Top2000 effect has become clear. More than 40% of all radio listeners tuned in to the Top2000 in the last week of the year.
So for the first time we can say with certainty, that theme or action weeks result in a higher market share. Responding to this with a campaign can certainly have a positive effect on campaign reach.
This benefits advertisers when they are audible on that radio station during the specific campaign week. This effect is lost when the radio campaign contains multiple stations n the mix. This is because then fewer people listen to the other stations in the mix. The total number of listeners remains the same.
Conclusion
The Audify Annual Report 2023 provides in-depth insight into the audio world. It enables media specialists to create both more effective and efficient audio strategies for advertisers and marketers.
This article provides only a brief overview of some key insights from the Audify Annual Report 2023. For more detailed information and analysis, the full report can be accessed on Audify's website.
In the succeeding audio article, we delve deeper into the innovative radio forms in the world of audio in 2023