Bauer Media CEO UK and European Radio Paul Keenan calls for the entire radio industry to unite
02 April 2019 - Press releaseBauer Media CEO Paul Keenan opened Radiodays Europe today calling for commercial and public service broadcasters to unite and adopt a pioneer mindset to enable radio to continue to prosper.
He celebrated the performance of the commercial radio sector across Europe which is seeing all time high levels of listening, share and record advertising revenues underpinned by innovation and unprecedented high-profile talent moves from public radio.
Paul Keenan, CEO Bauer Media UK and European Radio commented: "We must challenge ourselves to think differently, and renew how we work. Radio is the master of reinvention, the ultimate adaptive medium and commercial radio has proved itself to be agile and opportunistic in launching new services“.
He continued, "Commercial radio has never been so strong across Europe and we call for strong co-operation with our public service broadcasting colleagues, underpinned by a new spirit of collaboration and respect rather than duplication and needless competition. Our focus must be on adopting a pioneer’s mindset to understand future consumer trends and create next generation radio – enhanced services the listener will value, which harness the capability of new voice activated devices“.
The speech in full:
A question to everyone in this room …
Has there ever been a better time to be in commercial radio?
The answer to this question is a resounding NO. There has never been a better time to be in commercial radio.
But can it be even better?
The answer to that question is a resounding YES.
Commercial radio is thriving in times of change : it hasn’t just weathered the digital transition but it’s flourished.
The momentum is such that we are seeing some unprecedented talent moves from public radio to commercial. The commercial sector is achieving all time high levels of listening and share; and commercial radio proving itself to be more agile and opportunistic in launching new services.
In many countries across Europe revenues are at record levels, listening is strong and innovation in product, platforms and processes are plentiful. Radio has achieved this by being a master of reinvention.
The evidence from across the markets in which Bauer Media operates is compelling.
In Sweden, audio advertising revenues topped one BILLION Krona (EUR 103m) for the first time in 2018 – having grown by 77% over the past 5 years.
It’s a similar story in the UK, with record commercial radio revenues in excess of £700m (EUR 822m) in 2018.
In Finland, we’ve enjoyed 5 consecutive years of advertising revenue growth, with radio’s share of overall advertising expenditure rising too.
Advertisers clearly appreciate radio for its reach, resonance and results.
In audience terms, in Slovakia, the commercial radio sector is outperforming public radio by 2:1.
Neighbouring Poland has seen a significant decline in public radio, with 40% of its audience share lost since the turn of the century. And, in Norway, whilst wrestling with the digital switchover debate, we’ve just recorded the highest levels of commercial radio listening time since 2011.
Finally, I’d like to mention Denmark where, in September of last year, the government announced a program of public service media reform which will boost cooperation and limit competition between public and commercial broadcasters – something we warmly welcome.
We would like to see stronger co-operation with our public service colleagues, underpinned with a new spirit of collaboration and respect rather than duplication and needless competition.
As we saw in Denmark, the public service media reform reflects an acknowledgement by the government there that the commercial radio sector meets the needs of ALL radio listeners in Denmark. This is a ringing endorsement of the outstanding product that we as a commercial radio industry deliver to listeners and advertisers alike – day in, day out.
The commercial radio core business is healthy, invested in and transitioning well to the even bigger world of audio.
Radio is adapting well to a connected world, dominated by screens, because it understands the power of sound. And unlike other, so-called traditional media platforms the radio business model is not broken by the internet. Well, NOT SO FAR AT LEAST.
Digital is good for radio. The internet is a friend of radio.
As commercial radio moves ever more digital, so the choice for listeners widens and the value we create for advertisers increases.
There is no doubt that we will face challenges, with a different set of competitors, as regulation reduces we need the flexibility to compete on a global platform. We have been competing in a highly regulated environment and we are moving to a space which is largely unregulated. There will be a period of transition as we as an industry move towards a new way of working – this will not always be easy and there will be some unsettling times ahead. We also need to continue our work to ensure Radio maintains its position as the default entertainment choice in car and that we continue to find new ways to engage listeners of all ages.
But if we are to realise these exciting new opportunities and secure a sustainable position in this new audio world we must be brave, bold and focused.
We must be prepared to think differently and to challenge ourselves to reinvent how we work.
Bauer Media is investing more than ever before to maximise the opportunity. With more than 25 million listeners daily and market leadership in five out of our seven countries, we are excited to find new places to go.
In the UK in the past year we have re-launched two of our major channels nationally, acquired four FM radio operators, launched Scala Radio, a national, digital station for cultural explorers looking for a modern take on classical music and this week, on Friday, in fact, we will launch the UK’s first national, commercial country music station… Country Hits Radio.
We have started well on home speakers, commanding significant listener attention. In the UK, listening on voice activated devices is already 40% of our total online listening and is now making a meaningful contribution to the 66% of our overall listening which is now digital.
We place as much pride on the innovation we support with our commercial partners, last year for example combining with Warner Brothers to take the whole of the Magic radio station to Paris, broadcasting live from the Eurostar as we went.
In Poland we have a webcast radio platform – RMF ON – offering nearly 100 individually themed radio stations broadcasting exclusively online and together reach nearly 1.4m listeners each month.
In Sweden, our podcast business is booming – audiences are up 130% since 2016, significantly extending advertisers’ reach to listeners not currently served by broadcast radio: 60% of our digital listeners in Sweden cannot be reached by our “traditional” radio.
And in Finland we are finding a market for our sound-scaping and audio branding business.
But this is just the beginning – I believe the opportunities are boundless.
So what must we all do as an industry to secure the opportunity that the new audio world presents…?
- Celebrate the live experience. It is still about the dinner, not the plate, to quote again the peerless Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
- Leverage our trust. No fake news here. No ad placement which destroys a customer’s brand equity. No ad blocking. No fraud. The ad environment here is safe and sound. And has proved to be a brilliantly effective brand building medium for advertisers. But I don’t think we can afford to be complacent with advertisers, we have found Radio Centre’s Ebiquity research – which compared marketer’s perceptions of media platform’s effectiveness with the evidence-based research on those platforms – demands a reappraisal of radio’s role in the marketing mix and has started many new and productive conversations.
- Launch new products and services. Innovation drives interest from listeners and advertisers. It’s all about being different and better. Whether its music or speech; new linear services or on demand; podcasts or webcast radio; new forms of curation or smart ways of using social media to drive speech or music. Radio can be fresh and surprising, evolving and attention-seeking.
- Invest in brand management. As connected devices multiply opportunities to listen, we can no longer rely on easy discovery in our walled, FM garden. Listeners must see our brands and our offer as a beacon of quality so that when they go to voice search, we are on their lips as first choice for entertainment, music and companionship.
- Innovate in distribution, talent and creativity to stay relevant to younger audiences. It is not build-it and they will come. It is build-it and take it to them wherever, however and whenever they want it.
- Prioritise distribution on owned and operated platforms and invest in and develop our relationship with Amazon and other platforms, which make it easy for consumers to listen to our content unmediated. We must come together to support the in-car hybrid radio solution developed by Radio Player. When we look across the radio industry from public, to commercial and community and we look ahead, we have more which unites us than divides us. We have rich and unique content, curated by much loved brands and we should work together to avoid us being disintermediated and disaggregated.
- Convert our unknown audiences to known, prioritising platforms where we can build an all-round intimate relationship with the listener. A logged-in listener is going to be more engaged, more loyal and more invested in what we do.
- And finally prepare. Prepare to practice all we have learned in audio for a world in which voice leads search and discovery. Let’s meet the future and seize the opportunity. Let’s create next generation radio – enhanced services the listener will value, which harness the capability of the new, voice activated devices radio and audio is increasingly consumed on. We are in the best position to innovate on these devices and we should adopt a pioneer’s mindset.
Let’s create the sweet spot, where the live experience and listener personalisation converge. Let’s not underestimate the power of the live offer and the curated experience. It is something streaming platforms cannot currently emulate. We should anticipate that they will try so we need to take it to the next level.
We are the ultimate adaptive medium, quick to land on new platforms and devices; and trusted for the context and quality of the environment we create. We are the masters of reinvention, the Madonna Medium if you will forgive my age.
The key to endurance will be understanding future consumer trends and capitalising on radio’s ability to port and diversify in a highly digital, fragmented and personalised landscape.
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