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Media
UKRD chief says keeping it local is paying off
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 24 June 2013
The always-good-for-a-quote boss of local radio company UKRD, William Rogers, has taken a pot shot at his rivals’ centralisation policies in a statement made as the firm pays a half-year dividend to shareholders for the third year running.
Admitting that it remains a tricky time for the commercial radio industry, Rogers claims that local advertising markets are actually more stable than the national advertising sector just now, which – he says – means his company’s policy of keeping much more of its local radio station operations local, rather than networking in the majority of the programming from a central hub, is paying off.
According to Radio Today, Rogers said: “Trading continues to be patchy and there’s no doubt that advertising revenues remain very short term, particularly in the national marketplace. As we have increasingly driven our genuinely local strategy, as opposed to the lip service to localness paid by some, there is a clear trend of upward movement in both audiences and locally derived revenues and this is the way we intend to continue to develop our operation”.
Further criticising his competitors in the form of a sympathy message, the UKRD chief, who oversees a portfolio of sixteen local radio stations, continues: “For the benefit of the industry as a whole, I only wish that some of the bigger brands were more successful than they are. It’s clear from even a casual look at RAJAR that some are in decline and this is not good for any of us”.
