Although being one of the oldest media, radio continues to experience a positive momentum in many countries, and is showing resilience despite the surge of online. Radio, which is a predominantly a live linear broadcast flow of curated music and speech, also represents an important part of the growing audio market, which comprises on-demand music streaming services (such as Spotify, Apple Music or Deezer), podcasts and audiobooks. Innovations in audio, such as personalized digital audio advertising, the rise of voice AI assistants like Alexa, Siri or Google Home are providing opportunities for new entrants as well as incumbent radio networks. Historically, the radio industry has developed differently in all regions of the world. In the USA and Latin America, radio is essentially commercial. In Europe, public radio broadcasters capture in most countries the lion’s share of available resources and audience. Until today, streaming audio and radio have evolved in parallele worlds, but the same trend already observed in the TV industry, coping with the SVOD emergence, could also disrupt the radio industry, as shown through the example of Spotify, which added radio news in music playlists, as well as a large choice of podcasts and shows.
The radio market in
