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Metro to lose display screens

A new ad campaign could mean more billboards to come

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
January 9th, 2008 issue

While waiting on the platform at one of Prague’s metro stations, passengers will soon have less help passing the time and counting down to the next train’s arrival.
After four years of operation, the Metrovision projection screens, which broadcast news and transport announcements and advertisements in metro stations in the city center, will be uninstalled in the coming weeks, Metrovision operators told the daily Lidové noviny (LN) Jan 4.
The screens, which have been in place since 2003, stopped streaming newscasts as of Jan. 1 and are now only being used for announcing the arrival of a train into the station.
With a total of 24 locations in six metro stations, the projection screens are owned and operated by the local branch of global promotion and advertising company JCDecaux, which is responsible for a number of billboards, TV screens and other types of advertisements in public transport hubs throughout Prague.
According to JCDecaux, the screens had been programmed to broadcast 70 percent news and 30 percent commercials.
The company’s sudden decision to dismantle the screens is at odds with its previous plan to install additional monitors in the metro. Last September, the company announced its intentions to expand its Metrovision project by placing the screens inside trains in an interview with Marketing & Media (M&M), a local magazine.
“We are continuing to run a test trial on [the screens],” marketing company UniControls Director Marian Belošovič, who collaborated with JCDecaux on the Metrovision project, told M&M last September.
The abrupt plan reversal was caused by the state-owned Prague Public Transit Company (DP), which operates the city’s metro, an unnamed source told M&M Jan. 8.
At press time, DP spokeswoman Helena Macháčková declined to comment on the situation, but promised to reveal more information later this week.
In reaction to the shutdown, JCDecaux will launch a new advertising campaign, installing a total of 40 billboard panels in two unspecified metro stations. The panels will be packaged in sets of 20, allowing advertisers to fill an entire wall inside the station.
 “We are currently deciding whether or not to replace the screens and, if so, which medium we should use in their stead,” JCDecaux marketing manager Jan Kábrt told LN.

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com


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