India’s 93.5 Red FM network has announced an increase in their advertising rates by 35 percent across all its stations.  

The new ad rate will be effective from Monday.

Commenting on the decision, 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 customized solutions for their brands and do not have an issue in paying premiums. With Phase 3 and newer cities we plan to venture into, we have decided to go ahead with rates hike of 35 percent  across the network.  With strong hold in Metro cities as well as Tier II and III cities, we will continue to provide customized quality solutions for all our clients across the network and hope to receive their support for the desired increase.”

She added that this is a very interesting time for 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 of major metro’s 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 have been stagnant for almost 2-3 years now.

According to her, Phase 3 auctions and an overall optimism within the industry is also going to put pressure on the operational expenses.  Thus the rate hike is one of the steps that have become a necessity to optimize the demand and supply and offer best of entertainment and mileage to advertisers and stakeholders.

More volume is also coming from lot of new categories and it’s good to see their trust in the medium by planning campaigns with FM stations.