Here are Billboard Insider’s 5 predictions for the out of home industry for 2017:
- Clear Channel continues to shrink. Total Debt/Cashflow is 7.5 at Clear Channel and a whopping 11.4 at iHeart. Outfront is at 4.8 and wants to operate at leverage of 4.0. Lamar is at 3.5. Clear Channel Outdoor’s leverage of 7.5 is unsustainable and and more assets sales are on the way.
- Autonomous Vehicles enter the trough of disillusionment. There are cost issues, tech issues and vehicle fleet turnover issues. See Autonomous Cars and the hype cycle. As an outdoor executive you need to monitor the autonomous vehicle industry and how it may change the out of home business. But the sky is not falling.
- Automated outdoor buying comes of age. Lamar, Clear Channel and Outfront are developing their own products. Independent companies are active as well: Adquick, AdBidx, Adstruct, Apparatix, Bitposter, BrandScreen, DoMedia, Fliphound, Kinetic, MyAdboooker, fVue, Site Tour, Vistar. The list goes on and on. Someone is going to get it right.
- Federal Regulatory relief. The early Trump appointees seem to signal that 8 years of I-can’t-get-my-way-in-Congress-so-I’ll-propose-a-rule are coming to an end. Look for less scrutiny of out of home mergers and maybe some OSHA rule rollbacks.
- Cities continue to leverage billboard sites for cash. The Chicago model works. Cash-strapped municipalities will permit billboards on city property in exchange for cash.
What are your predictions for out of home for 2017? Let Insider know using the form below.
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