What’s proper billboard spacing?   When Insider approaches Winnemucca Nevada on I-80 he sees thirteen 14 by 48 steel monopole billboards spaced 500 feet apart on on the south side of the freeway.  They show up as small dark lines off I-80 on the google map picture below.  Many of the billboards are vacant.  The rented billboards go for $300-400/month.  A 6 times gross sales multiple would value those boards at $48,000-$58,000/each which is probably less than the $65,000 construction cost of a new, two-sided steel monopole.  The signs are too close together.

Paul Wright in Billboard Appraisal cites a 1968 study which found that  a motorist needs 8 seconds to read a billboard.  Dwain Stoops and Marvin Wolverton state in The Valuation of Billboards that 8 seconds is the optimum exposure time for a sign.  Here’s a chart from The Valuation of Billboards which calculates optimum minimum sign spacing.

Source: The Valuation of Billboards, Stoops and Wolverton, Appraisal Institute, 2006.

Insider’s take: Sometimes setback regulations are a blessing in disguise.   A 1,000 or 1,500 foot minimum spacing between signs isn’t bad because it guarantees maximum exposure.  Maximum exposure means higher revenues.

Paid Ad