Radio Revenue Tops $13B; WTOP Still No. 1
• In the first edition of its Investing In Radio® Market Report for 2023, BIA Advisory Services reports that total local radio over-the-air and digital revenue for 2022 topped $13.6 billion in 2022, growing 7.4 percent from $12.6 billion in 2021. Over-the-air advertising grew 2.2 percent to $11 billion (up from $10.7 billion in 2021) and digital income rose 35 percent to $2.6 billion (up from $1.9 billion in 2021).
“Looking at last year’s ad revenue results, it shows that radio is maintaining an important position in their local markets, particularly as it expands and improves its online digital presence,” said Nicole Ovadia, VP of Forecasting at BIA. “This year, we are making a particular effort to track the digital revenue of local radio stations and believe this breakout in our forecast will be valuable to everyone in the industry.”
For 2023, Ovadia forecasts that the bump in revenue experienced in 2022 will be harder this year without significant political spending but expects that 2024 political advertising will start earlier in the cycle than usual, potentially bleeding into late Q4 of 2023.
Looking at the Top 10 radio stations by OTA revenue, a few adjustments in rankings occurred in 2022. While Hubbard’s all-News WTOP/Washington, DC maintained its long-time leading spot with $69 million in advertising revenue, other all-news stations struggled — compared to last year’s list, Audacy all-News WBBM-AM/Chicago dropped to the No. 9 position and all-News sister WCBS-AM/New York dropped to the 11th spot. New to this year’s list at No. 10 is Cox Media Group News-Talk WSB/Atlanta, with $31.6 million in 2022 revenues.
