Outdoor Advertising

Wendy Greuel TV Ad Attacks Eric Garcetti's Support For Digital Billboards, Which She Also Voted For

Wendy Greuel launched a TV attack ad this morning, faulting her rival in the race for L.A. mayor for his support for a controversial settlement allowing hundreds of digital billboards.However, Greuel also voted for the 2006 settlement with Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor when the issue came be ... More >>

Buh-Bye to LA's 100 LED Billboards?

China conquers America

USC Football Billboard in UCLA Territory Torn Down by Regency Outdoor Advertising

Looks like Regency Outdoor Advertising, one of the biggest billboard companies in this land of 10,000 billboards, is choosing sides in the epic beef between USC and UCLA. At first, it appeared that Regency (which is reportedly co-owned by Brian Kennedy, a prominent USC donor) had sided with the Tro ... More >>

USC Grad Student Sues Over a Deep L.A. Secret: Who Got Rich Off Illegal Billboards?

Farmers Field Roadside Billboard Risks

Expect a big jump in distracted, dangerous drivers, expert says

A Field of Billboards for Farmers Field

Wilshire Grand Hotel: Los Angeles Digital Skyscraper Goes to a City Council that Has Little Idea What It's Approving

By Tibby Rothman and Jill Stewart Wilshire Grand Hotel rendering done at such an extreme angle it's nearly impossible to see light effects.​Update: The City Council has approved the top-to-bottom lighted Wilshire Grand Hotel project.  The vote will read as "unanimous" officially, yet one co ... More >>

Digitally Ad-Wrapped Skyscrapers Coming to L.A.?

Jan Perry opens a new front in the Los Angeles billboard wars

L.A. Advertisers And Anti-Billboard Activists Pissed Over City Council's Bright Idea To Slap Billboards With A 12 Percent Tax

PHOTO BY TED SOQUI​The Weekly has long had an eye on sketchy billboard deals throughout Los Angeles. In 2008, we reported that 4,000 of the city's 11,000 billboards were illegal, built without permits or earthquake regulations. Then came the Westside "Mad Men," fat-cat entrepreneurs who were ... More >>

West Los Angeles Locals Say 100 Remaining Digital Billboards Gotta' Go!

Are drivers watching the road or the digital sign?​ Environmental advocates are ramping up their efforts to combat the proliferation of what they call "weapons of mass distraction," by urging local lawmakers to

Tokyo Style Billboards For Downtown L.A. Proposed

​Los Angeles is one of the world's great neon cities, but the Korean and American developers of a new high rise proposed for downtown want to take it up a notch. According to Curbed LA, the owners of the Wilshire Grand hotel -- proposed site of a 65-story building -- want to create a sign dist ... More >>

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Rules LA's Billboard Ban Constitutional

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled today that the city's ban on billboards is constitutional. ​ The panel of three judges found that the Los Angeles City Council did not violate the free speech rights of World Wide Rush and Sky Tag when it granted exceptions to its ... More >>

Jane Usher: Neighborhood Blight Fighter

The Mad Men of Los Angeles

Living the good life, thanks to the big profits from illegal outdoor advertising

City Attorney Moves Against 'Supergraphic' Signs

​The City Attorney's office on Tuesday announced it filed civil injunctions against 27 sign companies, sign installers and property owners for illegally putting up super-sized advertisements known as "supergraphic" signs in Los Angeles. It declared that the displays are public nuisances and se ... More >>

Les Moonves Begs Villaraigosa: Let CBS Keep its Digital Billboards

In a weird twist, powerful CBS president Les Moonves is asking Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to oppose a possible vote by the Los Angeles City Council that Moonves sees as a threat to 101 digital billboards flashing ads all over L.A. -- close to 20 of which are bringing in revenue to CBS O ... More >>

Poor Les Moonves: Garcetti admits L.A.'s Clear Channel/CBS digital billboard deal was a mistake

City councilman Eric Garcetti admitted today that the City Council's disastrous 2006 billboard settlement deal, hammered out by former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo with Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, was a "mistake." "I take responsibility for voting on the settlements," said Garcetti during a C ... More >>

Supergraphics Be Banned: City Attorney Scores Another One Against Billboard Blight

If you're frustrated by the city's inability to control those Times Square/Vegas Strip-like digital billboards and towering, slab-sided "supergraphic" ads, there's a crusader on your side, and he actually works for us -- unlike those other city politicians who seem to work for developers, media comp ... More >>

Judge: L.A. City Council's 2006 digital billboard settlement is "poison"

Slamming the Los Angeles City Council's bizarre 2006 "settlement" with billboard giants Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor as "poison," Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green tossed out the backroom deal that handed huge outdoor advertisers a multi-billion-dollar gift to erect more than 800 glaring ... More >>

Judge Throws Out City's Digital Billboard Settlement

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled today that the city's billboard settlement agreement that allowed 840 digital billboards citywide is invalid. Superior Court Judge Terry Green ruled that the settlement agreement between the city and billboard giants Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor was inval ... More >>

Poor, Ultrarich Tim Leiweke

L.A. City Hall genuflects to AEG. Somebody forgot to tell Carmen Trutanich

City Council Votes for Permanent Ban on Digital Billboards

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously today to ban all digital billboards in the city, an action brought before them by City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who feared that an existing "Interim Control Ordinance" that temporarily bans digital billboards and super-graphics may soon be found inval ... More >>

Is L.A. Planning Commissioner Bill Roschen in love with billboards?

The Los Angeles Planning Department will most likely vote Thursday on whether to back a sign ordinance that will prohibit giant-sized supergraphics and brightly-lit digital billboards from the city's sweeping landscape but allow them in 21 potential sign districts around the city. Fighting the ch ... More >>

A Los Angeles “Ban” That Really Invites Billboards?

Critics assail a “Swiss cheese” vision that allows massive sign proliferation

Surprise! Billboard Industry Poll Reports that Angelenos Dig Digital Billboards

A newly released survey conducted in Los Angeles County found that  just 22 percent of residents polled were familiar with the politics and legal mess surrounding digital billboards. Of that fraction, just six percent reported that the issue was important to them. Those are only a few of the su ... More >>

L.A. Billboard Cheerleader Richard Alarcon Opposes Digital Ban

Los Angeles' City Council voted 10-4 today to support a state moratorium on digital billboards. This will rankle billboard companies who claim that California assemblyman Mike Feuer's proposed law takes away local control just when City Hall is trying -- again -- to get a handle on billboard clutter ... More >>

U.S. Billboard Safety Study: Do Another Study

A widely anticipated federal traffic study into the dangers to motorists of brightly flashing, distracting digital billboards reports that -- drum role please! -- more research is needed to figure out if they're unsafe.The 39-page report, clinically entitled, "The Effects of Commercial Electronic Va ... More >>

Villaraigosa could copy the Blagojevich billboard-removal crews

People were cheering in Chicago and other parts of Illinois today after crews openly began dismantling the obnoxious blue signs that ousted Governor Milorad Blagojevich had slathered all over the state in an embarrassing effort to personally take credit for road projects.When I saw this efficient-lo ... More >>

City Council Delays Billboard Ban Endorsement

L.A.'s City Council put off a widely-anticipated decision on whether to support a proposed statewide moratorium on digital billboards. Instead, the council will hold public discussions next Friday on whether to back Assembly Bill 109.If passed by the California legislature, Assemblyman Mike Feuer's ... More >>

Is Tokyo the Future for Los Angeles?

A new "ban" would allow 20 areas citywide thick with billboards

Back to the Drawing Board for Billboard Ordinance

A packed room of angry anti-billboard and pro-billboard residents, lobbyists and business owners practically shouted down City Hall's rushed efforts to reign in outdoor advertising Thursday, with the City Planning Commission tabling the entire mess for a month. About 100 people attended the early-mo ... More >>

How Energy Conscious is Los Angeles? Not Very!

Here is a mind-boggling conflict that seems strangely at odds to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's effort to creat a green, energy-conscious city. On the one hand, the DWP is pushing homeowners to go green -- even suggesting that homeowners use low wattage bulbs instead of incandescent ... More >>

City Report Calls For Digital Billboard Ban -- Kinda

City planners are causing a stir with a report released today that calls for banning all new digital billboards -- with a huge exception.The much-anticipated Department of City Planning Recommendation Report, obtained early by L.A. Weekly, comes just weeks after the Los Angeles City Council approved ... More >>

Mike Feuer Proposes Statewide Digital Billboard Ban

In a strong rebuke of the Los Angeles City Council, which did not conduct a single discussion of safety issues before approving hundreds of digital billboards that have now begun to sweep across Los Angeles, California State Assemblyman Mike Feuer  (D-Los Angeles) proposed a law Friday to ban L ... More >>

Why L.A.'s Latest Billboard Fix Won't Work

There are signs that the Los Angeles City Council's just-adopted billboard moratorium, purportedly designed to give officials time to crack down on the forest of 10,000 billboards. One possible result is that pro-billboard factions in City Hall now see an opening to wipe out a billboard ban current ... More >>

Billboards Gone Wild, L.A. City Council Defiled

Citizens take matters into their own hands

Digital Billboards Become a Bohemian Blasphemy

Silver Lake, Hollywood, the Valley and Westside take on City Hall's anti-green transformation of LA

Bizarre Election Triangulation: Grim Sleeper, Clear Channel and Bernard Parks

Category: Desperate election moves. Check out the new deal between former Police Chief Bernard Parks, now an L.A. City Councilman, and Clear Channel, whose bad neighbor approach to doing business has helped plaster L.A. with illegal billboards (Clear Channel denies this). Clear Channel forced LA Wee ... More >>

Los Angeles City Planning Commission Adopts Preliminary Motion to Ban all New Electronic Billboards

Taking aim at digital billboards in the wake of intense opposition from community groups in Hollywood, Venice, Encino, Silver Lake and other areas, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission adopted a preliminary motion to ban all new electronic billboards for a year. The Interim Control Ordinance w ... More >>

Shoving 850 digital billboards down LA's throat

We're thrilled to see Steve Lopez skewering the blazing, flashing, crass digital billboard clutter now sweeping L.A. while billboard-industry financed, highly conflicted members of the City Council, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo let it all happen. Lopez has joined t ... More >>

Council Member Garcetti to Introduce Legislation Targeting Electronic Billboards

Council President Eric Garcetti plans today to introduce two resolutions that would address the rapid spread of electronic billboards in Los Angeles. The first motion calls for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo to revisit the terms of the settlement agreement between the City of Los Angeles ... More >>

LA Business Journal Reports on Billboard Blight

The Los Angeles Business Journal published an article yesterday about the city’s billboard ban, which exempts itself and a few large billboard companies. The article focuses on two lawsuits filed by two smaller billboard companies that are suing the city of Los Angeles for – among other things ... More >>

Mega-Billboard for Billionaire Anschutz: What's Next, Preparation H Pavilion?

City Council rolls over for tycoon, ignoring its own anti-billboard law

Clear Channel Drops Bid for Digital Billboard

Anti-billboard activists are breathing a sigh of relief. Yesterday, Clear Channel decided to withdraw its application to install a hyper-bright electronic billboard on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. Clear Channel's attorney sent a letter to city planners withdrawing its application for a 14 foot by 4 ... More >>

Anti-Billboard Activists Gear Up for Fight

Anti-clutter, anti-billboard activists are gearing up for a fight tomorrow when a hearing will be held on a proposed, hyper-bright electronic billboard on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. The Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight has been fighting to stop the bright billboard on Ventura Boulevard since l ... More >>

New Foe Against Digital Billboards?

San Francisco Outdoor Advertising Company Lawsuit Mirrors Billboard Attacks Against Los Angeles

Two Los Angeles court rulings in favor of outdoor advertising companies are playing strong roles in a recent court filing in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Metro Fuel, which is owned by New York based Fuel Outdoor Holdings, which specializes in mini billb ... More >>

Outdoor Advertising Company Attacks San Francisco’s Billboard Ban

Last Friday, Metro Fuel filed a motion in United States District Court for the Northern District of California to prevent the city of San Francisco from enforcing its laws against illegal billboards. The outdoor advertising company, which is owned by New York based Fuel Outdoor Holdings, which sp ... More >>

Billboards Gone Wild: 4,000 Illegal Billboards Choke L.A.'s Neighborhoods

Is City Hall corrupt, or just inept?