Greg Bicouvaris likes to get local business owners on television.

The owner of GJB Productions & Marketing in Newport News, Bicouvaris creates commercials and buys discounted airtime on various media for Peninsula-based businesses. This year, Bicouvaris has done 14 commercials including ads for restaurants, hair salons and gift shops.

He likes local cable channel LNC 5 because it's relatively cheap and allows local businesses to get their names out.

"On LNC 5, you don't have to pay to run commercials on the Southside if that's not the market you're trying to reach," he said.

Some local small-business owners say it's cheaper to buy time on LNC 5 rather than run ads in the newspaper or pay for time on one of the three local broadcast stations in Hampton Roads. They say it pays to reach people who live near the businesses and would be more likely to visit than folks in the rest of the region who could be more than 20 miles away.

Other media outlets, particularly newspapers and broadcast television stations, say business owners only reach a fraction of the market for their money.

LNC 5, a local news cable network, is owned by Belo Corp., Cox Communications, and Landmark Media. It went on the air in 1997. The channel has about 145,000 subscribers on the Peninsula, said Stock Watson, general sales manager at LNC 5. Watson said the channel's advertising business has increased 28 percent over 2004, primarily due to Peninsula businesses.

He would not comment on exact prices, but he did say that businesses typically spend $1,000 to $2,000 for a month's worth of advertising on LNC 5. On average, that's about $20 per 30-second commercial.

Yasutsugu Kasan Nishikawa of Newport News thought that was a great deal. He owns Kappo Nara, a Japanese restaurant on Oyster Point Road. It opened in 1987, but recently he's had to compete with dozens of new restaurants in Hampton Roads.

During his first year, he relied on newspaper advertising and word of mouth to attract customers. He said that's not working so much anymore.

Nishikawa talked to Bicouvaris about advertising on TV and shot his first commercial more than six years ago. His latest commercial airs on LNC 5 about 20 times a week for about $400 a month, which includes Bicouvaris' discount.

"Some customers come in and tell us they saw the TV commercials," he said. "People who used to eat here when we first opened have come back because they saw the ads."

No organization tracks advertising revenue on local cable channels, but TNS Media Intelligence reported that general cable television advertising increased 12.8 percent to $11.5 billion for the first nine months of 2005 over the same time period last year. Ad spending on network television, however, dropped 1.9 percent to $16.1 billion. Newspapers get the most at $18.3 billion, a 2.5 percent increase over last year.

If you want to reach a lot of people cheaply, the newspaper is still your best bet, said Gregory Pedersen, advertising director for the Daily Press, which is based in Newport News.

"An ad running in the Daily Press is seen by over 250,000 people," he said. "You couldn't buy a spot on every network during every show and get that kind of reach in a day."

Pedersen said nearly half the newspaper's ad business is generated by small, local businesses. Many of those businesses are interested primarily in customers within a few miles, so the newspaper offers a service that delivers full-color, glossy fliers for about $69 per thousand fliers if they buy 10,000. The more fliers they order, the lower the prices get. But as newspaper readership declines around the country, the Daily Press has to push its case to business owners.

Mina Bailey opened Salon 05 about six months ago on Jefferson Avenue. She first ran an ad in the Daily Press' classified section for hairstylists, which cost her $300 for a week. She didn't get a single employee through the ad.

A friend and local storeowner suggested Bailey talk to Bicouvaris about TV ads. "I never thought of that. I always thought it cost an arm and a leg," Bailey said. She then thought TV advertising would make her salon stand out from dozens of others in the same area.

"I don't look for beauty salons in the newspaper," she said. "With a print ad, I couldn't show everything in the shop either."

She spends about $500 each month for the ads on LNC 5, though she also advertises in the phone book and local magazines. After airing her commercial, job seekers came to the shop. She said the commercials created word-of-mouth buzz, which is exactly what she wanted.

It's cheaper to advertise on local cable TV because there are fewer viewers than broadcast stations, said Doug Davis, general manager of advertising for WAVY-TV 10. Davis would not discuss the cost of advertising on WAVY.

"If people choose to advertise on LNC, by definition they would miss 40 percent of the market," he said. "But advertising on a broadcast station can reach 100 percent of the market."

He said the morning news show, which starts at 6 a.m., will reach 60,000 households in Hampton Roads. He said prime time shows, airing between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., could be seen in more than 80,000 households.

Watson said local cable TV advertising would cost as much as broadcast advertising if they got the same amount of viewers.

"We have a smaller audience than broadcast networks and we're priced accordingly," Watson said. "Our goal is to get a return on investment for advertisers."

Local cable TV advertising might be a good choice for a small, Peninsula business that isn't after customers in south Hampton Roads because it's cheaper to limit commercials to one side of the water, said Becky McIntyre, media director for the Meridian Group, an advertising firm in Virginia Beach.

But which media businesses use to advertise depends greatly on what they want to do.

Bicouvaris encourages his clients to advertise in newspapers, on the radio and on TV, but he also said local cable TV advertising for Peninsula businesses can't be beat. He said advertising during the news on a broadcast channel could cost $1,500 for one commercial. It costs about a third of that price for a month's worth of advertising on LNC 5, even if it means far fewer people are likely to see the ads.

"Cable gives people a platform where they didn't have it before. It lets the little guy get on TV," he said.