Marketing and advertising plays a crucial role for any business to determine their success or failure in market. Advertisements are featured to target maximum crowd in the minimum time and cost. Among the entire available advertising medium, radio accounts for 6.9% of the total advertising expenditure. Many businesses prefer radio as it is an effective media of communication and surprisingly, the number of radio listeners is significantly increasing these days.

Radio advertisements are affordable and effective for small as well as large businesses. In United States, 95% of people listen to radio while going to work, while returning home or after morning wake up. Car radios and cell phone radios have increased the spread of radio, across United States. According to a survey, radio is the second greatest communication medium, and majority of the listeners of radio, fall in the age group of 18 – 40. Radio makes enough customer-base for all the businesses to feature their advertisements 24X7, according to the category of customers. Commercial stations or radio networks make the most profit by featuring advertisements in the peak time by selling their airtime. Every radio station has different price for the airtime and program.

Radio advertisements are broadcast in air through radio waves, from a transmitter such as station to the receiving end such as antenna of the radio. The specialty of radio advertisements are that they can target the customers who are constantly traveling or are always on a move.

History and Evolution of Radio Advertisement:

Although, radio was aired in 1900’s, it began constant broadcasting only after 1919 in United States. KDKA (a radio news company), featured their first radio advertisement in 1920 on radio. During that time, the major hurdle for radio technology was the cost of operating the channels. In 1922, AT&T sold the toll broadcasting to the advertisers, which mentioned the sponsor’s name in the program. WEAF was the first paid advertiser for radio. Later many businesses advertised their products on various stations in 1920’s. During the golden age of radio, numerous changes and experiments took place in the radio-advertising formats. Some advertisers sponsored entire programs while some introduced celebrity voices for their products. Due to the voice limitation, the introduction of television media affected the radio advertising.

Although, many technologies and media channels are available to communicate with customers or to create customer base, radio listeners are increasing these days. Today, 13% of the US population listens to Internet radio, and the count is ascending.