There is alarming news for small business owners who advertise on Fayetteville area television stations: broadcast TV viewers are disappearing at a rapid pace.

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.

Radio advertising is processed by the brain five-times faster than visual advertising.  This is awesome news for Fayetteville business owners who depend on radio to market their goods and services.

Fayetteville consumers will recognize the first few notes of Jingle Bells five times faster than they can identify a picture of Santa Claus.  That's because it takes the human brain 5/100th of a second to process sound.  On the other hand, it takes a full quarter of a second to process visual stimuli.

This difference in processing time may seem inconsequential. But, for a Fayetteville small business owner who is fighting to inject their advertising message into the mind of consumers, that .20-second gap can be the difference between success and failure.

Carolyn Barbour who, along with her husband Tommy, own Budget Rooter, a successful plumbing company. They have been advertising on Fayetteville radio consistently for the past 11 years.

At a recent pluming convention, an industry consultant suggested to the Barbours that radio advertising might not be the most effective way to advertise. “No, no, no,” Ms. Barbour told him. “For us, radio is tried and true.  When people in Fayetteville have an urgent plumbing problem, because of our radio advertising, we are the only name they know.” 

A recent study conducted by MARU/Vision Critical, an international consumer research company, proves Ms. Barbour's point that advertising on Fayetteville radio generates sales.

During the past year, more than 21,000 people in the Fayetteville area sought the help of an attorney for personal reasons such as real estate transactions; bankruptcies; criminal defense; traffic offenses; personal injury; divorce; wills; and civil matters. This has produced legal fees exceeding $77-million dollars.

With almost 24,000 other lawyers in North Carolina competing for a share of this revenue, how can a new attorney hope to hang a shingle and make a living? Nicole Cotton of The Cotton Law Firm built her law practice over the last 8 years in the same way many other successful Cumberland County small business owners started out: advertising on Fayetteville radio.

Every Fayetteville small business has a brand. "Your company's brand," says Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, "is what your customers say about you when you are no longer in the room."

A few years ago, customers of the Crown Complex weren't saying good things. Advertising on Fayetteville radio helped remove the tarnish from the Crown's public's perception.