Hollywood High School has proposed a plan to erect a digital billboard at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue. The billboard would be on school grounds, and have two faces pointing at both streets, according to an artist’s rendering in the proposal’s presentation.

One district that made the leap into digital billboard advertising is Albuquerque, the largest district in New Mexico. The school system gets to use one 8-second message in every 64-second cycle. The district has eight signs at seven locations, which bring in about $225,000 a year total through a fixed lease. The money makes up nearly 30% of the annual budget of the district-affiliated Albuquerque Public Schools Education Foundation, which makes grants to local schools.

L.A. Unified would do something similar, much as it does with film shoots, which brought in about $3 million last year. The host school gets 75% and the remainder goes into a pool for all schools.

A vendor approached Hollywood High with the idea for a billboard, although all comers would be invited to make an offer.

Advertising at schools is always a contentious issue, and digital billboards in Los Angeles makes the matter all the more complicated.  One of the few locations where they are allowed is just down the street from Hollywood High School, at Hollywood and Highland.

The concept is expected to go before the full school board in December. You can read more at the LA Times.

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