Charlotte radio reaches more local consumers each week than any other advertising medium.

According to Nielsen, 1,983,988 adults tune in to their favorite AM/FM stations every week.  This is significantly more consumers than are reached by Charlotte TV, cable, streaming video, streaming audio, social media, or newspapers.

AM/FM radio's dominance among local consumers is driven, in large part, by the 2.5 million Charlotte area adults who take to the road in their car or truck every week, according to Neilsen.

Local business owners have depended on Charlotte radio to market their goods and services since WBT, the city's first radio station, went on air in 1922. Despite the advent of new media and technologies since then, advertising on local radio stations is still the best way for the area's 92,427 small business owners to create and maintain customers.

Here are five facts every business owner should know about advertising on Charlotte radio in 2022.

There are about 1,700,000 registered passenger vehicles in the Charlotte area. Some are cars. Some are trucks. Some are Hondas. Some are Fords. Some are Teslas. Some have four doors. Some have two. Some go fast. Some go slow. Some guzzle gas. Some sip. Some are red. Some are blue.

The one thing that almost every car and truck in the Charlotte area have in common, though, is the AM/FM radio smack-dab in the middle of the dashboard.

The first car radio went on sale in 1930. It was an invention of the Galvin Manufacturing Company. The company named the radio 'Motorola,' and its cost was $130, around $2000 in today's dollars. By 1935, more than three million car radios had been installed.

Today, AM/FM radio is part of every car and truck on Charlotte-area roads. In addition to the radio, many of these vehicles also provide drivers with other audio options, including a CD player, Sirius/XM, Pandora, Spotify, podcasts, and easy access to personal MP3 collections.

It is fair, then, for small business owners who depend on Charlotte radio to advertise their goods and services to ask: with all the audio options on today's dashboards, is anyone listening to local AM/FM radio in the car anymore?

To ensure success, every Charlotte business owner needs to advertise.

"Think you have a great product?" asks the US Small Business Administration. "Unfortunately, no one’s going to know about it unless you advertise.”

The SBA goes on to say, “Advertising, if done correctly, can do wonders for your product sales, and you know what that means: more revenue and more success for your business.”

There are dozens of ways for local small business owners to advertise. By most metrics, the best way to advertise is on Charlotte radio. These measures of effectiveness, however, are often obscured by the glimmer and glitz of newer technologies. 

To help reduce the glare that often blinds business owners to the potency of advertising on Charlotte radio, here are the top five things many local business owners get wrong.

In 2020, there were 108,229 new cars and trucks registered in the Charlotte metro area. This number is based on projections from the National Auto Dealers Associaton (NADA) and the U.S. Census bureau.

In all, says NADA, there are 249 new-car dealerships in North Carolina. Despite the pandemic, these dealers, including those in the Charlotte area, sold $28.2 billion worth of new vehicles.

Through June of this year, these same dealers have already rung up $17 billion in new car sales.

When it comes to buying new vehicles, Charlotte consumers have a broad range of preferences. Some buyers want Fords while others want Chevrolets, Toyotas, or Teslas.  Some buyers want pick-up trucks, while others want sub-compacts, SUVs, or sports cars. Of course, some want blue vehicles, while others want pearl white, orchard green, or redolent red.

There is one purchase criterion, however, that most Charlotte car buyers can agree on. They want an AM/FM radio smack-dab, in the middle of their dash.