Each week, according to Nielsen, more than 1.5 million adult consumers tune-in to a Las Vegas radio station. This is significantly more than watch local TV or cable. More than stream video channels like Netflix or Hulu. More than read local newspapers. More than use Facebook or Instagram. More than listen to online audio services like Pandora and Spotify.

But almost everyone knows (including many who advertise on Las Vegas radio) that consumers only listen to local radio stations during the day. Right? Wrong!

According to Nielsen, 48% of local consumers listen to Las Vegas radio stations each week between 7:00pm and 12:00am. This is a larger audience than Pandora, Spotify, and Instagram combined reach during an entire week.

For Las Vegas small business owners, radio's immense nighttime audience offers a unique value proposition.

Las Vegas area consumers are expected to spend upward of $30.1-billion at retail in 2021. This would be, at minimum, a 6.5% jump over 2020. The forecast is based on newly released estimates by the National Retail Federation.

“Despite the continuing health and economic challenges COVID-19 presents, we are very optimistic that healthy consumer fundamentals, pent-up demand and widespread distribution of the vaccine will generate increased economic growth, retail sales and consumer spending,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said.

“From the outset of the pandemic, retailers have gone above and beyond even the most conservative safety guidelines to protect and serve their associates and consumers alike."

To capture the largest possible share of spending growth, local retailers will need to advertise. By the most crucial marketing metrics, the best best way to reach consumers is by advertising on Las Vegas radio.

Las Vegas area business owners are expected to invest $473-million during 2021 to advertise to consumers connected to the internet. This forecast was produced by Borrell Associates, a company that tracks business advertising expenditures across the country.

These online marketing dollars will be spent on banner advertising, search engine marketing, email, as well as audio and video advertising. This is all to capture the attention of shoppers and buyers as they go about their connected days.

According to Nielsen, 96% of adult consumers in the Las Vegas area have access to the internet. They connect, primarily, with desktop and laptop computers; smartphones; or tablets.

Ninety-four percent of Las Vegas adults spend at least one hour per week online, with most spending at least 10 hours connected.

Since 1930, advertising on Las Vegas radio has helped small business owners survive and thrive during times of peril. This includes world wars, natural disasters, depressions, and recessions.

Even during a pandemic, by almost every key marketing metric, radio advertising remains the best way for a Las Vegas business to market its goods and services.

To prove the point, here are five statistics that vividly demonstrate the value of advertising on Las Vegas radio.

There are 908,100 adult women in the Las Vegas area. Based on research from the Harvard Business Review, as a consumer group, females account for 70-80 percent of all consumer purchasing through a combination of their buying power and influence.  According to Nielsen, this will amount to between $33.2 billion and $37.9 billion this year.

Overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the US Census Bureau:

• Single women across all income brackets spend, on average, $34,817 on goods and service
• Working married women contribute over a third of their families’ incomes
• Over a quarter (29.4%) of wives earned more than their husbands in 2018, an increase from 15.9% in 1981.

Furthermore, according to research published by Forbes:

• The top homebuyers after married couples are single women (18%, double the percentage for single men at 9%).
• Women are 50% more likely than men to regularly watch online how-to videos.
• 94% of women between the ages of 15-35 spend over an hour per day shopping online.
• 70% of travel consumers are women.
• 85% of women say that if they like a brand, they will remain loyal to it.

For Las Vegas small business owners to successfully capture a meaningful share of the local female economy requires advertising.

Las Vegas's first radio station, KGIX-AM, began broadcasting in 1930.  The process of getting the station's programming from the studio into the home of local listeners required tall-transmitting towers with miles of underground copper wire in the middle of massive fields.

For the next 63 years, this massive investment in real estate, steel, and cooper was the only method of delivering a radio advertiser's message into the ears of Las Vegas consumers.

In 1993, however, new technology permitted Las Vegas radio stations to augment the reach of their tall towers by simultaneously streaming its over-the-air programming via the internet. This provided local consumers with the choice of listening to their favorite stations on their car radios, clock radios, and boom boxes or on an internet connected devices like computers, smartphones, or tablets.

Today, based on estimates from Edison Research, 11% of listening to local radio stations occurs on a streaming media device.  The ability for AM/FM to migrate from their tall towers to internet streaming allows Las Vegas radio to reach more local consumers every week than all other media.

There are 38 radio stations in Las Vegas. Each provides a unique format of news, sports, music, entertainment, and inspiration. Some stations broadcast in English. Others serve Spanish speakers. Some stations cater to millennials. Others appeal to Baby Boomers.  No doubt, there is a local radio station that fulfills the preferences of every listener.

Each week, according to Nielsen, 1.5 million adults tune-in to their favorite Las Vegas radio stations. This is more people than watch local TV, cable, or streaming channels. This is more than use Facebook and Instagram. This is more than read newspapers or connect to Pandora and Spotify. 

Despite the abundance of Las Vegas radio stations to choose between, Nielsen reports that, on average, adult consumers only listen to 2.9 each week.  So, which stations do local consumers choose?

In 1920, the few Las Vegas residents who owned a homemade crystal radio set might be able to tune-in KHJ from Los Angeles, one of the first stations in the western U.S.

From that time, many predicted radio's success would succumb to advances from new technologies. In 1927, the challenge came from talking movies. In the 1940s, the predators were 13-inch TV sets. In the 1970s, it was 8-track and cassette tapes. In the past 20 years, there was a multi-flank attack from iPods, Zunes, YouTube, Sirius, XM, Pandora, Spotify,

So far, all of these challengers have failed. Not even a pandemic has been able to remove radio as a vital force in the life of Las Vegas consumers.

Every week, according to Nielsen, more adults tune-in to Las Vegas radio than watch TV or cable. Use social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Read newspapers. Or, stream music from Pandora or Spotify.

How important is Twitter to Clark County consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal yesterday.  Almost every local TV newscast included references to the site as well.

Twitter's outsized presence in the news, however, is enormously disproportional to the importance of the micro-blogging app in the life of Las Vegas's consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 13% of adults in Las Vegas use Twitter during the course of a month. This is minuscule compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter offers 20 different options that Las Vegas small business owners can utilize to market their goods and services to local consumers.  The platform's minimal reach, however, can hamper the success of any advertising campaign.

Local radio did to come to Las Vegas until 1930, when local resident John Heaton was awarded a license for KGIX. 

Prior to the arrival of KGIX, radio listeners in Las Vegas were dependant mostly on distant broadcasts. These were primarily from Los Angeles based stations.

KGIX, unfortunately, lasted for only five years. The station was both underpowered and under-financed.

In 1939, a more successful radio station was licensed to Laure Belle and Maxwell Kelch of Las Vegas. The call letters KENO were chosen.

The inaugural broadcast of the station occurred in 1941 from studios located in the Meadows Nightclub on Boulder Highway. Shortly, thereafter the station moved to the El Rancho Vegas Hotel & Casino at 2500 Las Vegas Boulevard. It broadcast from that location until 1960.

For almost 100 years, small business owners have depended on local radio stations to successfully market their goods and services through depressions, recessions, wars, and natural disasters. Even now, during a pandemic, advertising on Las Vegas radio remains a dependable way to make cash registers ring.

Here are five facts every Las Vegas Small business owner needs to know about local radio in 2020.