Dynamax Technologies is to provide its POV software to Clear Channel Outdoor to create an over-arching service that will allow centralised campaign booking and management for the outdoor giant’s inventory in nine European territories. The deal is expected to later be extended to Clear Channel’s operations outside of Europe, SCREENS.tv has learned.

The first stage of the deal, which follows more than a year of testing the POV software and competing systems by Clear Channel, will see POV installed at a network centre where it will be used to coordinate digital, non-digital and mixed campaigns across Europe. Individual territories’ local management systems will not be replaced by POV but will interface with it.

The deal is expected to have particular impact on Clear Channel’s sites in airports, public transportation, and malls (like the one pictured).

Clear Channel’s decision is not only a significant boost for Dynamax, which already counts Titan Outdoor UK among its clients and has just taken its first formal steps into the U.S. market – it also marks a notable foray by a screen-media firm into the world of non-digital outdoor, underlining the increasing importance of digital to the outdoor sector as a whole.

In what may give it a similar foothold in the North American outdoor market, digital-signage software provider Scala earlier this week said it was acquiring Canada’s Market Information Services, which offers management and analytical tools for non-digital outdoor.

Screen.TV is sharing its series of presentations from Screen Expo Europe earlier this month — free for you to download — continues with Duncan Ross, senior consultant at Faithful & Gould, asking whether London’s St. Pancras International Station offers a window on the future of transport signage.

Download Here (PowerPoint) 

Norwich International Airport in eastern England is taking the unusual step of mixing on-screen advertising with flight information, rather than running two discrete systems.

The makeover involving around 40 screens is scheduled for next month.

“We currently have a range of old-style CRT flight-information monitors at key locations around the airport and realised they needed replacing with flat-screen units last summer,” Louise Wilkinson, head of marketing and business development at the airport (pictured), told SCREENS.tv.
“As we took advice, we soon realised the opportunity to move on up to digital signage with advertising running in parallel with the flight information displayed to passengers,” she added.

“Some of the screens will be dedicated flight information, some will be mixed [flight info and advertising] and some will be dedicated advertising. It all depends on the location,” said Wilkinson.

The Norwich LCD screens are landscape in format, in a mix of 32- and 40-inch sizes supplied by Sonance, which is also installing the displays.

Plans call for advertising sales to be outsourced to one of Sonance’s sister companies, although Wilkinson said some of the screens — particularly the dozen behind the check-in desks — will be under local control.

“Staff at the check-in will be able to tie into a dedicated PC at the airport to change the flight information as required, as well as the banner message along the bottom of the screen. This will allow staff to get the message of the day — perhaps about security or luggage requirements — to passengers in a timely manner,” she explained.

Unlike some deployers of screen media, Wilkinson and her management team are not planning to make a complete change of systems on one day. “We’re planning to keep the old monitor screens in place until we’re sure the new screen system is fully operational. This is to give us a fallback if things go wrong with the new system,” she said.

Norwich’s passenger numbers grew more than 30 percent year-on-year during 2007 to some 772,000.

New Terminal to Sport Hundreds of Ad Screens To Generate Revenue

The Wall Street Journal - London: In a major expansion of the world’s busiest international airport in terms of international passengers, Heathrow owner BAA is scheduled to open the airport’s fifth terminal next month — with more advertising than almost any airport in the world.

From giant billboards overlooking security lines to television screens in the underground train station, the ads have been positioned in ways BAA hopes will make them impossible to avoid. There are 333 billboards or posters and 206 flat-screen TV sets, which can change ads to target specific flights. By contrast, Los Angeles International has 34 advertising TV sets in the entire airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International has 40, according to JCDecaux, a Paris-based specialist in outdoor advertising that was hired to design and sell the new Heathrow ad space to marketers.

The Wall Street Journal : The plan will be to use mass advertising in such a way that a Typical Terminal Five visitors will see between 50 and 120 ads, That’s at least one ad every two minutes and 55 seconds, based on the two hours and 26 minutes an average traveler spends at Heathrow.
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Feb. 18, 2008 by Gareth Powell, east Asia correspondent

VisionChina Media (VISN) is continuing to solidify its position as the largest Chinese operator of out-of home digital television advertising networks on mass-transportation systems, most recently through an exclusive agency agreement with Shanxi Da Zhong Mobile Television.

The agreement gives VisionChina Media (VISN) the exclusive right to operate TV advertising on all public buses in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province (highlighted on our map of eastern China), which has a population around 3.5m.

Shanxi Da Zhong has the exclusive licence for providing TV on the vehicles and has achieved a penetration rate on public buses of over 80 percent.

With this agreement VisionChina expands its existing national advertising network on buses from 14 to 15 cities.

According to a study conducted by CTR Market Research in September 2007, more than 25m trips were taken daily on public buses with digital displays in Beijing, Changchun, Chengdu, Dalian, Harbin, Nanjing, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Wuhan, Wuxi and Zhengzhou combined. Now added to this is Taiyuan.

This extensive list does not include Shanghai, which is one of the most important cities for this kind of advertising in China.

NASDAQ-listed VisionChina Media has operations in each of the listed cities either through exclusive arrangements, direct-investment entities, or both. Before this new agreement it had more than 33,000 digital TV displays; now that number will be increased, possibly to almost 40,000.

In 2006, the company sold a total of 20,126 hours of broadcasting across about 17,000 screens, with average revenues of about $34 per hour. In 2007, it has nearly doubled the number of screens revenues per hour of broadcasting have zoomed to $282.

This has driven the company from a turnover of $3.9m in 2006 to probably over $20m in 2007, representing growth in excess of 400 percent. Its net income of $3.7m on revenues of $17.3m translates to a margin of more than 20 percent.

VisionChina will report its fourth-quarter and fiscal-year 2007 financial results on 27 February.

14 Feb 2008 VANCOUVER, British Columbia — The Victoria Airport Authority has awarded a comprehensive, multiyear advertising contract to Immediate Images Inc., provider of digital-signage systems in British Columbia.
According to a news release, the company operates public signage systems in airports, cruise ships, bus-passenger terminals, tourism information centers, retail stores and recreation centers. The majority of the company’s systems are installed on Vancouver Island, and the company has developed a strong base of local advertisers, particularly in the hospitality and tourism-related industries.
“We wanted advertising at the airport to be accessible to all levels of business on Vancouver Island,” said Richard Paquette, president and chief executive of the Victoria Airport Authority. “The solution presented to us by Immediate Images offered an established base of local advertisers and a flexible rate schedule.”
Immediate Images has installed 27 plasma and LCD screens throughout the public areas of the Victoria International Airport, as well as traditional backlit panels and brochure racks.
The digital signage at the Victoria International Airport also will provide video content from The Weather Network and BC’s DriveBC Web site, real-time weather and road condition information will also be provided to travelers.
“Our focus was to enhance the travel experience for the people who use the airport,” Paquette said. “The screens and signage we’ve installed blend with the overall design scheme that we have, and they provide interesting and genuinely useful information.”

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15 Feb 2008 Washington Post: Washington’s Metro plans to install a digital signage network to carry system information and advertising in rail cars, train stations, buses and bus shelters in an effort to improve customer communication and earn much-needed revenue, officials said yesterday. The screens would supplement the popular electronic display boards on train platforms and at station entrances, which list arrival times and elevator and escalator outages. The 65-inch LCD monitors would show not only train arrival times, but also the time, weather and news. About two-thirds of the screen would be devoted to advertising.

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