eglinton1661
New Member
There are several trains on Line 1 with advertising space completely plastered with Air Canada at Billy Bishop announcements.
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jordanmkasla2009
Active Member
This being part of the substantial completion process. Not seeing any vehicles on the line isn't surprising. When ION in KW finished their revenue service demonstration there were no trains running until after Substantial Completion and the line opening (which happened to both occur on the same day!).
ctf5650
New Member
It looks like a real SYSTEM now, like something to be proud of
hw621
Senior Member
Now this SYSTEM needs to work efficiently, not constantly plagued with bad repairs, delays, slow zones, shutdowns without shuttle bus...(omitting 5,000 characters here)
McGillicuddy
New Member
"It's a beautiful day out there."
"Well it might SNOW tomorrow or be COLD later so let's just keep THAT in perspective."
"Well it might SNOW tomorrow or be COLD later so let's just keep THAT in perspective."
A 6264
Active Member
Whatever happened to pricing advertising space at "what the market will bear"? If half the advertising space is empty, the TTC should cut ad prices until they fill all their spaces again. Reduce by 50% if need be. Or more if need be.
Aside from printing costs (let's assume those are separated), the only expense to the TTC is hiring someone to rotate/replace posters now and then. The space where a poster could be, is still there, whether it's holding a poster or not.
Perhaps an economics major can explain this to me.
A 6264
Active Member
Well, a big snowfall is in the forecast for Sunday morning. Hopefully nobody has any plans....
McGillicuddy
New Member
What's happened to transit advertising is the same thing that has happened to billboards and periodical advertising (in newspapers and magazines): over the last 20 years, marketers have shifted to online channels which offer much more targeted ads that are more effective at motivating action. In Canada, about 2/3rds of all ad spending goes into online advertising of one sort or another.
Ads on transit vehicles are at an especial disadvantage here, since that poster will be travelling all over the city more or less at random, and as the buyer, you have have no efficient way of reinforcing your messaging short of plastering the whole system with your ads. (Whereas, if you buy a poster in a subway station, you're targeting a specific geographic area, and most passengers are gonna walk by the exact same ad twice a day for the length of your campaign.)
Transit advertising has also taken an especial hit off the back of the pandemic. Fewer passengers means fewer eyeballs, which means lower rates and fewer buyers.
As for fixing this problem by lowering ad rates, I'm not sure that'll work: the businesses you would attract by making transit ads cheaper are often going to be the small, local businesses that are least interested in advertising in the terms I've described. If I run a dental office at Yonge and Sheppard, given the choice between having a single poster at platform level at Sheppard-Yonge Station, and having 20 posters on random subway trains, I would much rather have the platform poster. Even if the 20 subway posters work out much, much cheaper.
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txlseries4
Active Member
Sorry to disappoint the narrative here but advertising revenue doesn’t seem to be in the dumpster. I took a quick look over a few minutes doing ctrl+f for advertising revenue in the annual reports and here's a sampling. I adjusted past years values to 2024 dollars. Looks like decent recovery after the hit the TTC took from covid.
2010: $36.6m
2019: $33.6m
2020: $27.0m
2021: $15.4m
2024: $31.9m
From annual reports: https://www.ttc.ca/transparency-and-accountability/Annual-Reports
and this board item for 2024: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ttc/bgrd/backgroundfile-256391.pdf
2010: $36.6m
2019: $33.6m
2020: $27.0m
2021: $15.4m
2024: $31.9m
From annual reports: https://www.ttc.ca/transparency-and-accountability/Annual-Reports
and this board item for 2024: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2025/ttc/bgrd/backgroundfile-256391.pdf
nfitz
Superstar
Indeed. Obviously slipped a bit over the years (with accounting for inflation). But nothing like some would have you believe.
I wonder how much that new animated tunnel wall advertising will reap - https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tt...cle_259356c5-bcf3-40d0-a7f5-ef4d11a9c098.html
drum118
Superstar
Nov 27
Steve X
Senior Member
I really don't know why they can't just replace the LED board with a new design. I'm sure TTC can pay for this. Major cities around the world do update their LEDs at least once in their 30 year lifespan right? They can include all the extensions under constructions like Ontario Line, Eglinton West, Yonge North and Scarborough.
They did spend $800,000 renaming Downsview to Sheppard West, they can spend a few million to do this. Who knows how much they are already spending.
Kyle Campbell
Senior Member
I mean they already did once. I'm assuming the extension to Vaughan wasn't already buried there under the map, but it could have been. I can't recall then being on the map when the TRs first started appearing, but not living in Toronto at the time I wasn't a regular rider so I might be remembering wrong,
They don't need to add any LEDs right now, so why would they spend that money? The next time that it would make sense to replace them is when the Scarborough extension opens, when they would need to add LEDs again. That's probably when they might consider replacing with a screen or a different design
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beatle04
Active Member
The LED's for the extension were indeed installed from the beginning, just covered up till it opened
ThenWhat
New Member
Or, wait for it, a really shocking idea
: Use that empty space for information that would actually be useful to the transit riders. Such as the map of the network, with updates for all long-term detours. Or rules for what is or is not allowed on TTC vehicles (bicycles, e-scooters, ...). Or information about schedules on major lines. Or locations of TTC self-service bike repair stands.