Red FM hikes ad rates by 35%

Red FM COO Nisha Narayanan cites the imbalance between the demand and supply in ad inventory as the key reason for increasing the ad rates

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | September 22, 2015

Red FM has announced an increase in its advertising rates across all stations by 35 per cent. The new ad rate came into effect from September 21, 2015.

On the decision to increase the ad rates, Nisha Narayanan, COO, Red FM, said, “We have not had a rate hike for a while now. Today, radio as a medium is growing at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 18 per cent and attracts a large number of advertisers as consumption of radio is on an overall high. The demand and supply scenario has a huge imbalance with demand way beyond the inventory that we can play on Red FM. Also, the advertisers have shown faith in us to provide customised solutions for their brands and do not have an issue in paying premiums.”

Nisha Narayanan

She further said, “With Phase III and newer cities we plan to venture into, we have decided to go ahead with rates hike of 35 per cent across the network. With a strong hold in metro cities as well as Tier II and III cities, we will continue to provide customised quality solutions for all our clients across the network and hope to receive their support for the desired increase.”

“This is a very interesting time for the FM radio space as the advertising community has been showing its faith in the medium continuously, which is evident from the overflowing radio inventories. Demand across most major metros and big cities has seen growth which is equivalent to festive season rush and thus, there is an eminent reason for the rate hike, which has been stagnant for almost 2-3 years now,” Narayanan added.

She remarked that in the wake of the Phase III auctions and an overall optimism within the industry was also going to put pressure on the operational expenses. “Thus, the rate hike is one of the steps that has become a necessity to optimise the demand and supply and offer best of entertainment and mileage to our advertisers and stakeholders. More and more volume is also coming from a lot of new categories and it is good to see their trust in the medium by planning campaigns with FM stations,” she added.

It may be noted here that while the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has announced the stations won by Digital Radio Broadcasting (an associate company of Red FM which runs radio stations in Mumbai and Delhi) in the Phase III auctions, the Ministry hasn't released the results of the bids submitted by Sun TV, South Asia FM and Kal Radio in compliance with the orders of the Madras High Court.

Red FM operates in four major metros – Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Kolkata. In addition to this, Red FM has radio stations in Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Saugor, Nashik, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Bangalore, Mysore, Mangalore, Gulbarga, Kochi, Trivandrum, Thrissur, Kannur, Kanpur, Kozhikode, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag, Warangal, Rajahmundry, Tirupathi, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Lucknow, Aizawl, Allahabad, Varanasi, Jaipur, Jamshedpur, Bhubaneswar, Asansol, Siliguri, Gangtok, Guwahati and Shillong.

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