Advertising on Subway and Light Rail (Highland: low income, movies, schools)

[Pepper101]

For the past 6 months, I have been taking the subway, light rail and orange line buses almost on a daily basis. One thing I notice is the type of ads in the trains/buses/stations are very limited. All I see are ads for trade schools, hospitals, accident lawyer, and ab-toner. Does metro have restrictions on the type of ads they will not accept? One would think there would be some movie/tv adverts.

[ferretkona]

Yup.
Advertise to the lowest common demonerator

[2Easy]

Metro does have restrictions, but they have greatly reduced them. Ads in train stations and on trains were essentially banned until 6 or 7 years ago. They may still be banned at above ground light rail stations. But the primary issue is that Metro riders are on average so low income that advertisers haven't been interested.

[nickdahammer]

The ads pasted ONTO the trains (light rail) are usually for TV shows or movies.

[saybanana]

Metro does advertise other things like Take Expo to the Natural History Museum, or Take the Dodgers Express to the game or USC football games or to Watts Towers and so on. I can't tell if Metro is paying for this to get more people to ride or whether these public and private places pay Metro.

[HarryKerryJr]

The vast majority of riders are low-income immigrant, so the ads you see reflect that. That has always been the type of ads on MTA and predecessor agency RTD going back to the 1970's. Didn't you notice many in SPANISH! No restrictions that would not allow more advertising for the affluent. There is supposed to be advertising in the tunnel between Hollywood/Highland and Universal City station, at least there was with flashing lights that looked like a video image as the train raced through.

Have you not noticed the obnoxious TV ads on the buses. Man, they drive people NUTS with the constant barrage of peace interrupting ads.

I for one find the lack of advertising in the train stations (more affluent riders take the rails, but avoid the buses) do be a relief to the eyes an leave more of the architecture of the station to be seen and enjoyed. Ads in the wrong place in a beautiful station like Vermont/Sunset would ruin it.