SYDNEY: The outlook for the Australian radio advertising industry continued to improve in 2013 as official industry statistics showed commercial radio advertising revenue increased in all five metropolitan markets in December.

According to figures sourced by auditors Deloitte for Commercial Radio Australia, the national industry body, advertising revenue in December rose 1.84% year-on-year to $53.98m while total revenue for the last six months of 2013 rose 2.82% to $355.69m.

Perth led the way last month, recording the highest revenue rise of 3.71% to $8m, followed by Brisbane (up 3% to $8.6m), Sydney (up 2.29% to $15.88m), Melbourne (up 0.46% to $16.44m) while Adelaide overcame two months of contraction to grow 0.18% to $5.03m.

Looking at their performance over the last six months of 2013, Adelaide was down overall by 1.6% to $31.98m, but the other four metro markets all recorded revenue growth.

Melbourne grew by 4.19% to $108.8m, Perth was up 4.01% to $49.79m, Sydney rose by 2.64% to $109.7m while Brisbane was up 2.12% to $55.42m.

The Deloitte figures include all metropolitan agency and direct revenue received by commercial radio stations in the five markets for each calendar month.

In its International Ad Forecast of October 2013, Warc expected Australia to record 2% adspend growth for 2013 as a whole and across all media.

This modest recovery is forecast to continue into 2014 with overall adspend set to rise by just under 3% for the year.

Data sourced from Commercial Radio Australia; additional content by Warc staff