Page 22 - AdNews Mar-Apr 2021

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up 40% for the full year, but still makes a small share of the reve- nue at $21.6 million.
“BVOD continues to be the shin- ing light for the TV networks, with double digit growth for the past few years, even within the pan- demic,” Cooper says. “We should expect this to continue in 2021.”
Enigma Media’s Justin Ladmore says that an unexpected factor contributing to BVOD’s growth this year is that clients themselves have had the chance to use it more during the pan- demic. However, the agency is finding that most of BVOD spend is coming out of TV budgets.
“We definitely see BVOD invest- ment increasing this year,” he says. “The biggest driver for the adoption of BVOD on media plans last year — apart from the increase in audi- ences — was the fact our clients were starting to use the BVOD plat- forms themselves at home as they were hungry for more TV content.
“They experienced it for them- selves and could see their brand up there. For us, the majority of this BVOD spend will come from allocated TV budgets.”
Above (clockwise): Justin Ladmore, Paul Wilkinson, Craig Cooper, Nick Durrant and Anthony Ellis.
A surprising trend that emerged during the early days of lockdown was the increase in radio listening despite travel time, the main listening environment for radio, being eliminated for most Australians.
According to industry body Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), 72 per cent of Australians were listening to as much, or more, radio during the pandemic in April. Where and how people were listening changed, with 33 per cent listening more at home, where we were all confined during the lockdowns, while listening at work remained stable. While 23 per cent of people say their in-car listening was down, 18 per cent reported listening to more than before, as social distancing reduced travel via public transport.
But again, this increased audience didn’t translate to more advertising.
In May, radio was down 55.8 per cent in media agency bookings. But by October there were signs it was starting to climb although it was still down compared to the same time the year prior. Deloitte data showed that revenue for metropolitan commercial radio fell 28.15 per cent to $130.402 million in the September quarter compared to the same three months the year prior. The recovery for radio this year is less certain compared to other channels.
“Radio had an interesting 2020,” says Cooper. “Their audience actually went up as audiences were in lockdown but revenue was quick to disap- pear during the second and third quarter. This may have caused knee-jerk spend shift decisions at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreaks, but is more likely to have been a reduction in most retail campaigns, which is a primary source of revenue for radio networks.
“With the explosion in podcast, streaming and audio consumption, the growth potential for the audio channel may be driven by these digital channels. 2021 should see minimal to moderate revenue growth but it’s going to be 2022 when we see any significant rebound.”
Again, media buyers predict that a drag on radio businesses’ rev- enue would be the discounted prices networks offered during the depths of the pandemic.
“Radio and OOH will take longer to return to pre-pandemic levels but we will see it this year,” says Butler. “They are possibly still