A challenge from
One More Folded Sunset has roused the Research Bureau from its summer doldrums: Why so many blank billboards on the BQE?
Driving west on the expressway yesterday, we counted 4 out of 4 blanks on the Queens side of the Kosciuszko Bridge and 6 out of 14 blanks on the Brooklyn side (ending at the Gowanus Canal where the BQE terminates). The empties included both bare frames (no board attached) or blank boards, like the one above in Maspeth. (This one actually has an ad from the
New York Times on the other side: Are eastbound drivers are a better market?)
What explains this dropoff in billboard advertising? Are the analog boards about to be replaced with digital ones (see WFMU DJ Frank O'Toole's rant
here)? Or are drivers too busy looking at their little screens to pay attention to the big ones? Readers, what are your theories?
(Note: This count does not include smaller company maintained boards, like the Marly sign in Greenpoint, or those afixed to houses or propped up on a building roof.)
Correction. The billboard visible from eastbound BQE is not for The New York Times, but part of Camera.org campaign accusing the NYT of "slanting" its coverage of Israel.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to the Bureau! We were considering the board-replacement theory too.
ReplyDelete