Related Articles
Subscribe to the Greater Public newsletter to stay updated.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
RAB’s 13th annual digital revenue benchmarking report (prepared by Borrell and Associates), which surveys both radio ad buyers and radio managers, offers some helpful insights into commercial digital media advertising operations and trends that can help inform our own digital underwriting practices.
How does public media compare with this? Well, we are going in the right direction but pacing behind:
So how can we continue to improve? Let’s look more closely at what the RAB survey tells us about spending trends and practices in place at our commercial counterparts. We can then work to apply what makes sense to our own operations.
The RAB/Borrell survey found that 58% of radio ad buyers plan to increase spending on something this year, and the top six areas are:
While the top two here can be challenging for public media to leverage – we are not search engines, and social media sponsorship can be especially difficult given our editorial firewall – we can and should be at the very least working to optimize the display ad and streaming opportunities we already offer to our underwriters.
Event sponsorship revenue not only continues to grow both for public and commercial radio, but for public media it is a space particularly ripe for experimentation and creativity. We would do well to:
Consider these tips and examples to maximize event sponsorship growth.
Collaborate internally to see what you might be able to leverage the increased interest in online video. Talk with your editorial and marketing teams (and others) about ways you could at once further engage your audiences and offer value to your underwriters. For example:
The RAB/Borrell survey also gleaned feedback from commercial radio station managers on the relative health and sophistication of their digital revenue strategies:
“While confidence among station managers seems strong, the survey found evidence that strategic plans may need revisiting, as for the first time since 2018, most managers believe their digital strategy to be no better than ‘fair.’ Coinciding with the strategy issue, most managers rated their sales department’s digital abilities to be no better than fair, which is an issue that has persisted since 2022.”
Perhaps not surprisingly then, the survey shows an uptick in digital sales training, with 40% of station managers pointing to regular digital sales training (the majority doing this weekly) as a key driver of digital sales. In addition to digital sales training, managers also point to the following as regular practices within their digital sales operations:
Much of the above resonates true for public media as well. All of us working in corporate support are continually striving to become more digitally savvy while embracing the unique strengths and value of radio, working to employ a multi-platform strategy to maximize and grow our underwriting revenue and motivate our reps accordingly.
The RAB/Borrell survey also looked at the largest sources of digital revenue for participating radio stations in 2025. Here’s how that plays out for commercial, showing the growth in online video products previously mentioned:
By comparison, here’s how digital revenue by source looks for public radio (taken from a recent informal survey of high-performing public radio stations). For us, display, streaming audio, and e-news/email lead the pack, followed closely by podcasts.
The RAB/Borrell report concludes that the radio industry continues to register long-term gains on the digital front. It points to formal training, a stronger sales force, and the practice of stations routinely including digital products in sales pitches as reasons why. The report also highlights the growth in and market demand for online video advertising, even from radio-first stations. Notably, the survey also points to what it calls the radio superpower of “marketing panache,” with both advertisers and agencies perceiving radio sellers as possessing greater expertise than other local competitors.
And while public media is not generating as large a percentage of digital revenue as our commercial counterparts, we are clearly positioning ourselves for more digital growth with some of the best practices highlighted in this report long-touted by Greater Public and already in place at many stations.
Best of all? In addition to the “marketing panache” super power associated with radio reps that the report mentions, when it comes to public media digital underwriting reps, we can also count trust, no clutter/high recall, and brand safety among an arsenal of super powers that we can draw from to deliver real benefits to our sponsors – benefits they simply can’t get anywhere else online, least of all from commercial radio.
It’s a bird… it’s plane … it’s digital public radio!
View these related member resources and more with a Greater Public membership:
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
New to Greater Public? Create an account.