There is alarming news for Clark County small business owners who advertise on Las Vegas television stations: broadcast TV viewers are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Nielsen reports that halfway through the first quarter of this year, the number of people using television has dropped 7.5%. This compares to -6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2019, and -7.0% a year ago,

"If the trend holds, it would represent the largest quarterly decline for TV viewership in our data set," explains UBS analyst John C. Hodulikadding. "Trends have worsened across most age demos with persons 25-34 now falling -17% vs. low double-digit declines throughout 2019. The persons 55+ demo continues to trend down -2%, similar to 2019 (the first year of declining ratings for the demo)."

Radio listenership, on the other hand, has remained quite stable, according to Nielsen. Since 1970, the medium has reached more than 9-in-10 consumers every week.

Marketers call them Generation Z.  Las Vegas small business owners call them teenagers.  Whatever 12-17 years old are called, they live in homes cluttered with video games, smartphones, and tablets. They have easy access to Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, and hundreds of other apps their parents have never heard of.

What may come as a surprise to many local business owners, despite an over-abundance of options, Las Vegas radio stations dominate teenagers' media consumption.

Last week, according to Nielsen, 147,100 teens tuned-in to Las Vegas radio. On average, each of these 12-17 year olds spent 90 minutes per day listening.

Of all the advertising options available to Las Vegas small business owners, streaming audio services like Pandora and Spotify are the least effective.  Here's why.

According to Nielsen, after the content of a commercial is considered, the element of an advertising campaign that drives sales the most is reach. In other words, making sure the most people possible are exposed to the advertiser's message is crucial.

When it comes to achieving reach among consumers, Pandora and Spotify rank dead last.  Advertising on Las Vegas radio stations, actually, can reach 235% more consumers than these two streaming-audio platforms combined.

It may surprise many small business owners that Las Vegas radio stations have a larger reach than Pandora and Spotify even among millennials.  Clearly, it is a myth that younger consumers are ditching legacy media in favor of digital options.

It's time to set some misguided Las Vegas small business owners straight.  When we say everybody listens to Las Vegas radio, we mean EVERYBODY.  Generations X, Y, and Z. Boomers, and, yes, millennials.

You know...millennials. Those are the "kids" who came of age at the turn of the millennium (which is debatably either 2000 or 2001).  This means 18-34 year olds. 

In the Las Vegas metro (Clark County, Nevada) 117,000 millennials make-up 37% of the population and will deliver $16-billion to local cash registers.

Attention Las Vegas business owners! Millennials DO, indeed, listen to the radio...almost every single one.