In 1921, radio came to Florida. Listeners in the Fort Myers-Naples area could tune-in signals from either WQAM in Miami or WDAE in Tampa. 

In 1939, however, The Fort Myers Broadcasting Company was granted a license to build and operate WFTM. The station went on the air in 1940 serving listeners in Southwest Florida.

WFTM switched its call sign in 1942 to WAAC and became an affiliate of the CBS radio network. Two years later, the call letters changed once again. This time to WINK.

Here are five facts every Southwest Florida small business owner needs to know about local radio in 2020.

There are 271,800 adults in Southwest Florida 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 Florida lockdown 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 Fort Myers radio.

Southwest Florida shoppers are expected to spend a record $2.9 billion online in 2020, based on the most recent projections from eMarketer. This would represent year-over-year growth of 32.4%.

During the same period, according to eMarketer, receipts at brick-and-mortar stores have contracted by 3.2%.  Overall, excluding gas and auto sales, e-commerce will account for 20.6% of all retail sales this year.

The Coronavirus pandemic is credited with this seismic shift in shopping behavior as consumers continue to avoid stores and opt for online shopping.

“We’ve seen e-commerce accelerate in ways that didn’t seem possible last spring, given the extent of the economic crisis,” said Andrew Lipsman, eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. “While much of the shift has been led by essential categories like grocery, there has been surprising strength in discretionary categories like consumer electronics and home furnishings that benefited from pandemic-driven lifestyle needs.”

Even before the onset of the pandemic, 73.9% of Fort Myers-Naples area consumers had bought goods online over the prior six months, according to Nielsen research. Purchases included clothing, health & beauty products, travel reservations, books, furniture, and groceries.

There is positive news for the 30,689 small businesses in the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL Metro Area.  A majority of consumers say they are ready to start shopping again.

A lifestyle survey just released from Nielsen indicates 53% of Americans believe that despite the continuing pandemic, life is beginning to normalize, and they are likely to resume typical activities.  Nielsen refers to this majority as "Ready-To-Go".

According to the survey, Ready-To-Go consumers now perceive less risk, feel safer, and believe their cities are emerging from crisis.

The key takeaway for Southwest Florida small business owners is that Ready-To-Go consumers are significantly more likely to start shopping within 30 days than the total population.  These buyers, according to Nielsen, are looking to spend on home improvement, professional services, auto parts/repair, shopping, food & dining, and travel.

To capture a meaningful share of the money Ready-To-Go consumers will be spending requires local small business owners to advertise.  By almost every metric, advertising on Fort Myers radio is the best advertising option.

There are more than 761,000 vehicles registered in Southwest Florida. 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 Fort Myers-Naples area 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 267,000 households in Southwest Florida with existing mortgages, according Nielsen. The median value of these homes is $292,000.

Yesterday, there was extraordinary news for many of these borrowers and for SWFL 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 Fort Myers 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 96.1% of Southwest Florida adults own at least one these devices. Furthermore, they are using them.

According to Nielsen, OTT and CTV networks now reach 42.3% of all Southwest Florida consumers every week.

Before COVID-19, most listening to Fort Myers radio happened outside the home. Southwest Florida consumers were tuning-in to their favorite stations from the car on the way to their job. Then, they tuned-in when they arrived at work. They listened again during the commute back home.

Nielsen recently surveyed consumers who worked from home before and during the novel coronavirus outbreak. The results show, as of June, 66% of respondents now work from home full-time as a consequence of the pandemic.

As consumers are compelled to work from their houses and curtail their commutes, the share of at-home listening to Fort Myers radio has grown by 16%, according to Nielsen.

Fort Myers radio reaches more area adults every week than any other medium. During a typical seven-day period, according to Nielsen, 854,073 local consumers tune-in to their favorite AM and FM stations. This is significantly more than those who watch broadcast television, subscribe to pay-TV, browse social media, read a newspaper, or stream music from Pandora and Spotify.

Radio's omnipresence in the life of Southwest Florida consumers is remarkable considering today is the medium's 100th birthday.

More than one-third of Southwest Florida area households are 'cord-cutters' or 'cord-nevers'. This means, they have fired their cable or satellite television providers or never subscribed at all. Instead, these consumers are choosing to find their video entertainment elsewhere.

The number of local homes that subscribe to pay-TV services began plummeting in 2013. New technologies has allowed viewers to bypass cable and satellite for more compelling content at lower prices. These cord-cutters now depend on services like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime to fill their multiple screens.

For many years, SWFL small business owners have been investing a significant portion of their advertising budgets into cable-TV.  The medium had proven to be a low-cost, high-reach alternative to buying commercial on over-the-air television stations. 

Now, because of cord-cutting, there are 330,000 adult consumers with unconnected TVs. This profoundly diminishes the value proposition of advertising with local cable systems.

There is a powerful and affordable solution, however, for small business owners to reach both the diminishing cable audience and the expanding number of cord-cutters.