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Your Client On The City Streets
In Los Angeles, the nation’s second-biggest city, billboard regulations have been the subject of contentious debate for years, and that debate continues.
Up until now, digital billboards have only been allowed inside the city’s sign districts, located in commercial or industrial areas of town.
But that may change.
The City Planning and Land Use Management Committee is considering a proposal to allow out of home companies to apply for special permits to place new digital boards in areas outside those districts.
As you’d expect, the proposal has sparked a lot of controversy. It will go for a final vote before the end of the summer.
Despite the many squabbles over billboards, Los Angeles remains one of the nation’s top OOH markets, a sprawling metropolis known for traffic jams that lend themselves to great audiences for roadside billboards.
To find out more about the out-of-home landscape in Los Angeles, read on.
This is one in a Media Life series on buying out-of-home markets.
Fast Facts
Where
Los Angeles
How it works
Los Angeles County is home to six of the top 10 busiest freeways in California, led by Interstate 5, according to the California Department of Transportation.
That road accounted for 6.6 million extra hours on the road for drivers in 2012, or the equivalent of 753 years when the traffic was moving slower than 35 miles per hour.
That’s a pain for drivers, but welcome for OOH vendors, whose roadside signage and billboards benefit from the congestion.
Billboards outside of downtown are the main form of OOH advertising in L.A. due to the traffic, but the size of the city often leads buyers to secure more units for a campaign to get a wider reach.
While traditional billboards are common throughout most of the city, the most desirable location for OOH advertising in L.A. is the Sunset Strip, the area in West Hollywood between Crescent Heights Boulevard and Doheny Drive.
It’s LA’s equivalent of Times Square.
It’s known for its abundance of OOH ads, most notably large spectaculars on the sides of buildings.
And while most of OOH in L.A. is aimed at drivers, the Hollywood and Highland area is one of the rare popular places for targeting pedestrians.
Another emerging area for reaching pedestrians is the developing downtown district, where the Staples Center and Microsoft Theater (formerly Nokia Theatre) are located.
Los Angeles also has a number of other options for OOH, including a bustling international airport. Last year, LAX was the second-busiest airport in the nation, behind only Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta.
L.A. also has a number of sports options for advertisers to target fans, including two baseball teams (Los Angeles Dodgers and Angels), two basketball teams (Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers), two hockey teams (Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks), a soccer team (LA Galaxy) and a WNBA team (Los Angeles Sparks).
College sports are also big, particularly USC football and UCLA football and basketball.
Billboards
There are 5,874 billboards in the L.A. DMA, with nearly half of those owned by two companies. Outfront Media, formerly CBS Outdoor, has 1,738 bulletins (standard 14-by-48-foot billboards) in the L.A. DMA, while Clear Channel Outdoor has 925.
Numbers
Los Angeles County is the most populous in the nation, with about 10.1 million people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. At one time the county was expected to hit 12 million by 2030, but growth has slowed and that number now is not expected until at least 2060.
How it is measured
Like other major markets, TAB ratings are used, while other data such as vehicular traffic, pedestrian traffic and travel surveys can be factored in.
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