 |
Wimbledon is merging its radio and digital operations this year.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES |
TV ratings for Wimbledon may be on the decline, but one medium is unexpectedly surging: streaming radio.
Listeners to the event’s radio broadcast through Wimbledon.com leapt 500 percent between 2014 and 2016 to 30 million, and further growth is expected for the fortnight beginning next week. In fact, the radio offering will get an early start this year with first-time coverage of this week’s qualifying tournament.
Audio of the event over radio in the U.S. is offered by ESPN through SiriusXM, which does not disclose listener figures.
The radio audience at Wimbledon.com is on the rise.
| Year |
Event listeners |
| 2014 |
5 million |
| 2015 |
15 million |
| 2016 |
30 million |
Source: All England Lawn Tennis Club
“We expected it to grow [but] I don’t think we expected it to get the growth that it has,” said Mick Desmond, commercial and media director of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, which owns and operates the tournament. “You are seeing radio as a medium kind of … repositioning itself because it is such an easy medium to engage with. Certainly, [for] anybody who is mobile, it is very, very easy. We are catching a lot of people on the go.”
The majority of the listeners come from the U.S. and U.K. in roughly equal numbers, with heavy presences from Australia, China and India.
The All England Club through its agency, WME-IMG, produces the radio feed from all courts, and that is streamed on the website. This year, the club is merging the radio and digital operations. The Wimbledon Channel, a link at Wimbledon.com, will now begin and end each day with a simulcast of the radio broadcast.
Long an afterthought given the prominence of television, audio in general has been growing in many markets as people start using their phones for listening, said Kevin Straley, chief content officer for TuneIn, a streaming radio website and app. “It is a perfect storm” of two trends, he added: people with mobile devices who also do not have a lot of time to sit and watch a telecast. TuneIn offers the Wimbledon.com radio stream, and from 2014 to 2016, 1 million unique users accessed Wimbledon Radio across the content on the app.
“The value … for rights holders isn’t just about visual,” said Tim Crow, CEO of U.K.-based sports marketing firm Synergy. And “it complements the web so well and the rise of podcasts has shown that there is an appetite for audio content.”
Podcasts are also driving audio usage, and Wimbledon is beginning to emphasize its own effort.
To date, the All England Club does not plan to profit on the growth. There is no advertising during the radio broadcasts or sponsors of the audio. The link to the radio at Wimbledon.com is in a Rolex scoreboard, the only nod to capitalizing on audio.
“Radio first and foremost is communications, storytelling and marketing for us,” Desmond said. “We are happy to grow these assets and bring the opportunity to monetize it at a slightly later date. But first and foremost, it is building our brand.”
