Outdoor companies talk about generating revenue from placing wireless and data antennas on billboards but so far it’s been lots of talk and little revenues.  An analyst asked Outfront about cellular and data revenues earlier this week and here’s what CFO/EVP Donald Shassian said:

I think it is like 0.0%, 0.1%. When we look at the new initiatives, for example, on small cell, what I can tell you is that we are making some good progress in Small Cell. It’s fair to say, right now, that the income that’s hitting our revenue numbers is somewhat de minimis. But, we’re working with multiple tenants on master license agreements with both the big national wireless carriers and cable, WiFi tenants.

These are complex documents. We have made some very, very good progress and we would expect that over the next few weeks we will be giving a little bit of further color in terms of who those MLAs or master license agreements are with.  And we continue to believe that this will be an interesting revenue stream for owners of out-of-home assets here in the US.

Source:  Seeking Alpha Transcript of Outfront 2Q 2016 earnings release.

Insider’s take: Most activity involves urban areas.  Insider was asked by a wireless site manager if he has billboards around Indianapolis Colts stadium, because the cell and data systems are strained when the stadium is full and everyone is using smartphones.  TV stations are sometimes interested in renting space on billboards for weather cams, particularly in tornado and hurricane areas.

Paid Ad