Digital Urban Spammers Simply Everywhere

Last week, we featured an apparent hack of the digital billboards in LA by an artist. This week, Rob Walker points us to a detailed examination in the Post Gazette of the ways billboard firms are twisting the arms of municipalities to get old billboards converted into digital ones:

Beginning June 1, Texas will allow digital billboards along state highways, even within cities, if municipalities want them. Houston, Dallas and Austin have bans on new billboards, but San Antonio’s city council voted in December to allow 15 digital signs as permanent “experiments,” to the dismay of the San Antonio Conservation Society, Scenic San Antonio, the American Institute of Architects and neighborhood groups.

…In Long Beach, Calif., three neighborhood groups are fighting the construction of six digital billboards along local freeways; each sign would be 40 feet high, with a 30-by-20-foot screen. The Long Beach City Council’s budget oversight committee endorsed the billboards in January, but council will hold hearings on the proposal in a few weeks. The budget committee has good reason to favor the billboards: Their owner would split the revenue with the city, bringing in an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million annually, according to the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Profit-sharing is just one tactic outdoor advertisers are using to get municipalities to warm to digital signs. They’re also using existing billboards as leverage to reduce their number in exchange for permission to erect digital ones. In San Antonio, twice as much square footage must come down for each digital billboard that goes up.

…”We’re there 24-7,” Clear Channel Outdoor chief executive Paul Meyer told the Washington Post last year. “There’s no mute button, no on-off switch, no changing the station.”

Places: With billboards, cities are facing the digital decision