Thursday, July 1, 2010

NYC's newsstands and bus shelters to be turned into giant TVs



[I changed the headline after reading Jeremiah's comment...I'm borrowing his TV line. Much better than whatever was there before.]

Expect the city's newsstands to get digital in the near future. According to an article on Lost Remote yesterday, Cemusa and some collaborators "have succeeded in retrofitting a matrix of sunlight readable LCD screens into the traditional poster light boxes of existing newsstands and bus shelters." Eh. The soon-to-launch digital newsstand network, featuring 65-inch landscape screens, will give advertisers "the flexibility to target campaigns based on geography." Which sounds like plenty of fodder for future blog posts.

Before...



Someday, perhaps...



[Photo of NYC newstand, Third Avenue and 32nd Street, via]

6 comments:

Jeremiah Moss said...

of course this was the diabolical plan all along.

i wonder, had Bloomberg told people that every newsstand would not only be stolen from its owner, but would eventually be turned into a big TV, would he have been able to push the Cemusa plan through?

i hope the car accidents these TVs will inevitably cause will manage to destroy a few of these ticky-tacky boxes.

EV Grieve said...

Giant TVs, of course... I changed my headline to reflect that comment...

glamma said...

file this one under the apocalypse.
seriously i thought this was a gag post. there is a group that is gaining momentum who is trying to remove advertising from public space, on the premise that it is an immoral intrusion on our senses and sensibilities, something we have no defense against. will try to find their name...

Anonymous said...

Where are the bored punks with ballpeen hammers?

Anonymous said...

Glamma, I agree with the idea of intrusion, but I wouldn't say that we have no defense. I am delighted whenever I see subway ads defaced in a mocking, incisive way, like when someone takes a Sharpie to a Sarah Jessica Parker poster, giving her a well-deserved gap-tooth, mustache and bushy eyebrows and what have you. In fact I'm inspired now. I'm going to carry a sharpie with me at all times.

Jill said...

the future is now the future is now the future is now