Bloomberg published an alarmist piece yesterday with the misleading headline: “Billboard Ad Sales Dive 40% With Americans Staying Off the Road.”  This story should have been published in April, not now.  This is old news.   The industry was hit hard in March and April but driving traffic and roadside bulletin revenues have recovered.

Inrix was reporting on weekly traffic trends post-covid.  They stopped after traffic returned to normal for the week ended June 26, 2020.

When Insider polled readers about revenues last week 27% of respondents said revenue is up or flat and another 33% of respondents said revenue monthly revenues are down only about 10% compared to pre-covid.  Transit and place based plants are struggling but most roadside out of home companies have recovered.

The subheadline of the Bloomberg article says “Growth will resume in 2021 but full recovery will take years.”  Let’s do the math.  Magna thinks the US out of home industry will be down 16% in 2020 and then up 9% in 2021.  So the out of home industry will be setting new revenue highs in 1.5 years.   The Bloomberg sub-headline should be:  “Growth will resume in 2021 with a full recovery in a couple years.”

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