Outdoor News and Notes

BIG TOBACCO STRIKES BACK!

Winston-Salem, N.C. It's not surprise that the Big US Tobacco firms don't like the new federal law with its advertising bans imposed on them.

On August 31,. 2009 ,R. J. Reynolds and other tobacco manufactures plus a retailer filed a federal suite that the states the bans on advertising " severely restricts the few remaining channels we have to communicate with the adult tobacco consumers, and in our opinion, cannot be justified on any basis consistent with the demands of the First Amendment."

They state that there are more than 40 million adult American who consume tobacco products.

Tobacco was a "cash-cow" and major buyer of Outdoor-Billboard Advertising for the past 40 years.

With outdoor -billboard US advertising down by 14.9% one can be sure that the major outdoor outdoor-billboards firms( CBS, Clear Chanell etc) will be lobbying Congress hard in the months to come.

SPEAKING OF ADVERTISING.

This year the advertising spending in the US fell by $10.3 billion in the first 6 months.

Internet Advertising. Down 1 %,

Network TV Advertising. Down 7%,

Network Radio Advertising. Down 9%,

Syndicated TV. Down 11.6%,

Local newspapers. , Down 13.2%

Outdoor Advertising. Down 14.9%

National Magazines. Down 21.2%

Local Magazines. Down 25.4%

Automotive advertising remains the top product advertiser but it was down 31.4%

Other top products: Pharmaceuticals. Down 11.3%, Wireless telephone services, motion pictures and local auto dealerships, down 26.2%.

There's a lot of pain and anguish in the entire advertising sector and the next 6 months do not look encouraging.

How much $$$ are retailers going to pump into the next holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, is the big question mark.

DIGITAL BILLBOARD TECHNOLOGY.

The new exciting, heavy-duty, buzz-word for the outdoor billboard advertising technology is the digitall large format LED display systems including LED billboards,large-screen video displays and control systems for sports and commercial venues.

One firm "Daktronics," indicates that it alone has installed more than 1,200 digital billboard nationwide in mare than 300 cities.

With a total US billboard inventory of about 450,000 the cost-to-convert is probably holding many firms back plus the uncertainty in obtain local approvals and permits.

Many communities have already banned digital billboard citing "safety issues." Expect many more to follow.

Bill McInerney