Absolute Radio to question community about charging online

This article was migrated from an old version of our website in 2025. As a result, it might have some low-quality images or non-functioning links - if there's any issues you'd like to see fixed, get in touch with us at info@journalism.co.uk.

Absolute Radio is looking to survey users of its website on charging for access and subscription services.

"Some percentage of our community will pay for content," Clive Dickens, chief operating officer of Absolute Radio, told yesterday's MediaFinance 2009 conference .

A service offering advertising-free radio at £10 per annum would be one potential premium package, Dickens suggested.

But charging for access to online content should be considered as one element of multiple potential revenue streams for media organisations, he stressed.

[Read Time Out founder Tony Elliott's thoughts on paid-for access from yesterday's conference]

A mixed model is needed to replace the decline in revenue from the radio model of spot advertising, as any upsurge in the advertising industry won't see a return to these traditional formats, said Dickens.

Traditional forms of spot advertising, booked by agencies, account for 60 per cent of Absolute's revenues, while 40 per cent come from a mixture of digital revenues and 'long tail' streams, he said.

"The world has changed, Google has changed it (…) There's no single revenue line that will replace that 60 per cent. The spot ad model isn't as desirable to brand marketeers as it was five years ago," he said.

"Technology on the one hand disrupts the model, but is also going to be one of the enablers to help us extract extra value."

Since its relaunch from Virgin Radio to Absolute late last year, the station's website has generated 42.1 million page views, 2.2 million podcast downloads and 25.4 million streamed hours of audio.