Abstract

Billboard Barons

The article discusses the consolidation of outdoor advertising companies in the United States as of 2004. A nationwide controversy erupted in July after Clear Channel Communications, one of the country's largest outdoor advertisers, refused to run an antiwar advertisement paid for by Project Billboard, a California-based nonprofit. The billboard flap raises lingering questions about Clear Channel's control over outdoor advertising. In the past twenty years the outdoor advertising industry has become a multibillion-dollar behemoth. Just three companies now dominate the landscape: Viacom, the already bloated media empire; Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio stations in the United States; and Lamar Advertising. Outdoor advertising, unlike other forms of media, is not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. Instead the task falls to the antitrust division of the Justice Department, which enforces general guidelines over market control and ownership. But critics say the department has not done enough to stop consolidation. Concentration in the industry also has potentially deleterious effects on civic discourse and diversity of opinion, media critics say.