By John Weller, Co-Publisher Billboard Insider

No, I am not a native Australian, but as a co-publisher of Billboard Insider, I have been curious about the Australian Out of Home market.

My son works for a Fortune Top 25 company and as a part of his management training program, he and his wife are spending 6 months working in Perth, Australia. Being the good parents that we are, my wife and I made the journey this month to Australia for a visit.  Being the billboard nerd that I am (much to the constant irritation of my family), I took some Billboard Insider time while I was there to meet with Steve Robinson who owns WA Billboards, one of the largest independent OOH companies in Western Australia.

Over the month of December I will share my conversations with Steve, but today is a short introduction to the Western Australian market.  I had never been to Australia and in some research before our trip I learned the following:

Australia is a lot larger than I thought. 3 million square miles versus the U.S. at 3.5 million.

Australia is a right-hand dominant continent. Virtually all the major cities are on the east coast versus Perth which is on the west.

Australia only has 7 states.

The population of Australia is 26 million.

The population of the Perth metropolitan area is 2.1 million.

The distance from Perth to Sydney (or pretty much anywhere) is 2,444 miles.

The Outdoor Media Association (OMA) serves the Australian OOH Industry.

We arrived in Perth fully jet-lagged (14 hour time difference) and as we drove from the airport, the immediate questions I had was WHERE ARE ALL THE BILLBOARDS?

More on that when you meet Steve in my next article.

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