With a goal to eliminate billboards along the city’s main streets and in pedestrian-friendly districts, the City of Orlando is considering allowing static boards to be swapped out for digital signs. The Orlando Sentinel reports that the City Council is meeting this week  and the expectation is they will approve what is being called the Digital Billboard Exchange Program. The program will allow companies to erect digital billboards in exchange for tearing down static boards along major arteries.  This program would be an exception to the current city code which generally does not allow digital billboards.

The program has identified eight corridors where digital billboards could be erected, including Colonial Drive, Orange Blossom Trail, John Young Parkway, International Drive and Semoran Boulevard.  As is required with most of these programs in major cities, the program typically requires companies to remove four times as much advertising space worth of static billboards, for each new digital permit.

The city also has specifically targeted 16 static billboards in its main street districts. If one of those billboards is being torn down to be replaced with a digital sign on a major artery, the swap-out ratio falls to 3-to-1.

If approved, the program would also allow animated, projected images on walls and sidewalks downtown. Currently, projected ads and art must be static. This is being done with the hope of adding to the  goal pf making the downtown core a more vibrant place to congregate.

Insider’s take: This is a significant market with over 2 million people in the greater Orlando area and Clear Channel, Lamar and Outfront all having operations in the area.  The program should be a plus for those companies as they look to expand their digital inventories and a benefit to the city as they, like most major cities, look to manage the roll out of digital signs in their market.  

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