Standover Tactics !

It's bright lights and advertising signs that are the difference between a country town and a global city and the electronic age has seen the old static billboard change into a riot of movement and colour as it presents ever changing messages.  We see this in sporting arenas with the spectator fence facing into the field of play constantly delivering a variety of sponsor messages.

Sydney city council is conducting a review of it's policy on outdoor advertising and has placed a blanket ban on the conversion of any existing static billboards to electronic mode and has suggested that a new condition of consent may require the billboard owner to donate fifteen percent of the message time to council use - free of charge.   This would be in addition to all the other fees and charges that apply to gaining consent.

The council sees this as a means of promoting council sponsored events such as the popular art exhibition by the ocean which is held annually.  It is beating the "public benefit "drum loudly and there is a hint that if it doesn't get it's way this may be reflected in getting approval for new billboard sitings - and some see that as a "standover " approach !

It is certainly a financial intrusion into the advertising industry. While these constantly changing electronic billboards are colourful and appealing, they are also very expensive to create and to lose fifteen percent of their revenue potential will certainly increase the cost to user sponsors.

This attempt to muscle in on billboard advertising by the council will probably degenerate into the ongoing stoush that exists between many city residents and Lord Mayor Clover Moore.  The Lord Mayor is a lady with very definite ideas on how she would like to see this city develop, and getting people out of cars and onto bicycles is high on her agenda.

The end result has been the creation of numerous shared pedestrian/cycle paths in the inner city that have sharply decreased kerbside parking for cars.  Many people complain that they are equally dangerous for both cyclists and pedestrians - and countless surveys reveal that they are little used. Cycling has certainly been adopted as a means of transport in some European cities, but it has failed to find favour here in Sydney, and yet more such cycle paths are on the council agenda.

The Lord Mayor is sponsoring various forms of art work for the city that is being questioned.  It seems that attention is now being focussed on promoting inner city worm farming and there is the suggestion that city residents might consider locating hives of bees on high rise buildings.  Such thinking is certainly receiving a mixed reception.

Some will see an intrusion into the advertising media as an attempt to foist socialist thinking in the form of brain washing onto the public.  There has been a degree of outrage at the form of art suggested for public places - to be paid for out of council funds.   The idea of what closely resembles a giant milk crate to be constructed in the city centre has not been welcomed.

Of course, demanding a share of commercial activities will be seen as the thin end of a very wide wedge.  Advertising takes many forms and if council succeeds in usurping the financial rewards from billboards it may extend to all other forms of public display.

Some would see it as simply a new fifteen percent tax on the income billboard companies will have to pay - not on profits but on their revenue stream.   A new source of revenue that will not be lost on the thinking of councils of other Australian cities !