Billboards Grow Up

NO CLEAR SIGNS AHEAD: DIGITAL BILLBOARDS ARE UNDER FIRE

Away from Times Square, the future for fast-changing electronic billboards is turning out to be full of static.

In the continuing nationwide controversy about the flashy commercial electronic eye candy, Los Angeles' digital-billboard brouhaha has provided new momentum for a statewide moratorium.

Early last month, the city council voted to back a two-year moratorium introduced in the California Assembly on the sophisticated signage.

The council's proposal would prohibit digital billboards from being built, enhanced or converted from traditional billboards until Jan. 1, 2012.

The moratorium aims to allow time to consider results from several federal studies currently examining the issue, including one by the Federal Highway Administration that measures motorists' eye movements as they pass the signs.

As in other states, legislators contend that the signs distract drivers on busy thoroughfares. Digital billboards typically flash sequential electronic commercial messages of several seconds' duration. Fines of $3,500 a day for violating the ban are part of the measure.

CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor, two companies that own much of the billboard inventory in L.A., both object to a statewide stop on sign conversions.

Clear Channel Outdoor has said it is “working with the City of Los Angeles to arrive at a regulatory structure that is sensitive to the need to avoid billboard over-saturation.” At the same time, it asks for recognition of the importance of outdoor ads to the economic vitality of the community.

An Arbitron survey on behalf of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America indicated that two-thirds of L.A. County residents are indifferent to the digital billboards or don't mind them, while 16% like them. Nearly half (47%) found them attractive, and 42% said they made the commute more interesting.

Last fall, a study by California-based consultancy The Active Network, which was commissioned by the mayor's office, recommended that the city license 15 new electronic signs on municipal turf to generate a $4 million revenue windfall by 2011.

“[Digital billboards] represent a relatively small fraction of the total billboard space in Los Angeles,” says Jeff Golimowski, an OAAA spokesman. Of the 6,000 to 7,000 billboards in L.A., just 80 of them are digital, he adds.

Golimowski contends that the appearance of the billboards is the primary issue.

“We believe [digital billboards are] being objected to on aesthetic grounds. They don't like the way these look,” he says.

On a related front, the city is seeking to curtail the proliferation of “supergraphic” vinyl signs that have appeared on buildings since a temporary ban on billboards was imposed by the city council in December. The Los Angeles Fire Department estimates that 100 illegal signs adorn city structures, and 20 building owners have been ordered to remove them. Violators of the billboard ordinance are subject to monthly fines up to $2,500.

FINDING COMMON GROUND

Other metro areas facing the same fight over digital billboards are finding ways to compromise, in the face of objections from the outdoor companies.

Two years ago, the St. Paul, MN, planning commission ultimately ruled that digital billboards could be erected, provided several “old-fashioned” static billboards came down for each new one. That ruling mirrored a compromise struck in suburban Minnetonka, where Clear Channel was required to remove two static billboards for each digital one it erected.

Cleveland, OH, currently requires the Minnetonka two-for-one approach to converting any of its 1,000 billboards — a rule Clear Channel wants the city to reconsider. In fact, the city is contemplating a moratorium on new billboard construction; a moratorium in Akron, OH, expired just last month.

Pittsburgh officials have been wrangling over the issue since last April, when the city council declared a six-month halt to erection of any new billboards in the city. Lamar Advertising is currently embroiled in a zoning battle over a 1,200-square-foot electronic sign it wants to plant in downtown Pittsburgh.

And while Milwaukee's common council voted last spring to permit digital billboards to change messages every eight seconds, it also imposed a requirement for special-use permits and possible public hearings each time a new electronic sign replaces an old billboard more than 1,000 feet from a freeway.

Finally, last month the Tampa, FL, city council seemed poised to okay a settlement on a long-standing dispute over billboards. The solution would have settled 13-year-old lawsuits by CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel by allowing the outdoor ad companies to build electronic billboards to within 200 feet of residences. In exchange, companies would have been required to take down static billboards in selected “scenic corridors” around the city.

But on Feb. 12, Mayor Pam Lorio sent the outdoor companies and the city attorney back to the negotiating table.

“We want to reduce visual blight in our community,” she said in an e-mail to both sides.
— Richard Tedesco