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.

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.

There are 370,000 adults in the Las Vegas area who have earned a four-year college or postgraduate degree, according to research from Nielsen. A study from the Federal Reserve indicates that these educated consumers have been least affected by the economic consequences of the pandemic.

"While the labor market disruptions have affected workers in a wide set of industries and occupations, those without a college degree have experienced the most severe impact," say Mary C. Daly, Shelby R. Buckman, and Lily M. Seitelman authors of The Unequal Impact of COVID-19 in the Economic Letter published by the Federal Reserve of San Francisco.

Although the unemployment rate increased among consumers of every education level in late March when the Governor of Nevada locked down the state to slow the spread of the Coronavirus, the smallest increase was among those with bachelor or postgraduate degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics..

Seven months later, job recovery among those with college degrees is closer to pre-pandemic levels than consumers with lower levels of educational attainment.

Many small business owners have seen the correlation between advertising and survival during the economic crisis inflicted by the pandemic.  With precious few dollars to invest, it is crucial that every advertisement reaches consumers who have disposable income to buy. Right now, the most likely spenders are customers with college degrees.

By key advertising metrics, the best way to reach consumers with higher education is on Las Vegas radio.

Before we explain AVOD, it is important to understand SVOD.

Las Vegas small business owners may not be familiar with SVOD, but chances are they let it into their homes and onto their phones.

SVOD is the abbreviation for Subscription Video On Demand. That is the collective name for streaming networks like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.  For a monthly fee, these services provide commercial-free access to TV shows, original content, and movies.

These SVOD networks are delivered to viewers' phones, tablets, computers, and smart-TVs via the internet and not over-the-air or cable systems.

SVOD makes up a significant part of what advertisers refer to as OTT (Over-The-Top-Television) and CTV (Connected-Television). OTT/CTV is video-programming content that viewers can only watch on smartphones, tablets, computers, smart-TVs, Amazon Firesticks, and Roku Sticks.  Nielsen reports that 92.7% of Las Vegas adults own at least one of these devices.

Las Vegas area business owners are expected to spend $39 million on newspaper advertising in 2020. This will be 49% fewer dollars than were spent in 2019, according to a study by Borrell Associates, a company that analyzes local media expenditures across the country.

Of course, the pandemic is part of the reason advertising revenues have plummeted at Las Vegas newspapers. But, the more significant factor is the sustained erosion of readership.

For example, between October 2017 and March 2019, the Monday-Saturday circulation of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has decreased by 22%. The Sunday edition suffered a 17% decrease.

Among all advertising media available to small business owners, newspaper's ability to reach adult consumers now lags significantly behind Las Vegas radio, cable, broadcast TV, and social media.

There are more than 1,400,000 vehicles registered in the Las Vegas area. Many need new windshield wipers, shocks, struts, brakes, air filters, ignition coils, and the hundreds of other items that fill the shelves of local auto part dealers.

Despite the pandemic induced slowdown, business at auto parts stores has grown nearly 13% since February, according to the US Census Bureau.

This explosive growth in auto parts sales directly relates to the  average age of cars on Las Vegas's roads.

"Per the latest study from IHS Markit, the current combined average age of vehicles has hit a record of 11.9 years," Rimmi Singhi wrote this week on NASDAQ.com. "The aging vehicles are a boon to auto parts, replacement, and repair companies. In a bid to ensure long-term functioning of the aging vehicle population, customers are making investments to replace faulty vehicle parts and components."

Also contributing to the rapid aging of cars on the road is the current demand for used versus new vehicles. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) for used cars is 25% higher in August than it was during the same month last year.

There are approximately 244,000 households in the Las Vegas area with existing mortgages, according to the US Census Bureau, American Housing Survey. The median amount owed on these homes is $166,000.

Yesterday, there was extraordinary news for many of these borrowers and for Las Vegas area banks, credit unions, and mortgage companies

According to The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), mortgage rates have hit an all-time low of 2.86%.

Advertising on Las Vegas television and cable is becoming less attractive to local business owners as viewers rapidly defect to alternative video entertainment sources including, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, Amazon and Disney+.

Collectively these streaming services are referred to as Over-The-Top Television (OTT) and Connected-TV (CTV). Viewers can only access this OTT and CTV content via smartphone, tablets, computers, smart-TVs, Amazon Fire Sticks, and Roku Sticks, Nielsen reports that 92.7% of Clark County adults own at least one these devices. Furthermore, they are using them.

According to Nielsen, OTT and CTV networks now reach 44.8% of all Las Vegas consumers every week.