Approximately 100 digital billboards owned by Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor have gone dark after a judge ruled that they were illegal under a 2006 agreement between the companies and the Los Angeles City Council.

CBS and Clear Channel digital billboards in Los Angeles were turned off following a court ruling. (photo by Edwin Folven)

On April 12, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry Green ordered CBS and Clear Channel to turn off 77 digital billboards by Monday at 5 p.m. On Tuesday, Green issued a second ruling affecting an additional 22 signs. The billboards are located throughout Los Angeles, but were predominately in Hollywood on streets like Cahuenga Boulevard and Melrose Avenue, and at numerous locations in West Los Angeles. According to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and the local anti-billboard activists, the companies have complied with the rulings.

“This is what we have been waiting for,” said Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight. “[On Monday] we had a quite a few people in different parts of the city monitoring the signs, and the billboards were turned off. It looks like CBS and Clear Channel went ahead and turned off the other ones before the other ruling. All of the ones in my neighborhood are off.”

Green ruled in a lawsuit filed by Summit Media, a smaller competitor of CBS and Clear Channel, which argued that the city’s agreement to allow the two companies to convert existing signs to digital billboards was illegal. The agreement was made in 2006, when the city council was looking to reduce the number of billboards proliferating throughout the city and approved an ordinance that restricted signs in many areas.

CBS and Clear Channel sued the city over the sign ordinance, and as part of a resolution brokered by then-City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, the city allowed the companies to convert existing billboards into digital signs. The judge ruled that the agreement gave an unfair advantage to large companies such as CBS and Clear Channel in the outdoor advertising market. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich praised Green’s ruling.

“Judge Green has led the way with his guidance in helping us put an end to the digital billboard permit dispute in Los Angeles,” Trutanich said.  “CBS and Clear Channel have begun the process of turning off their billboards in what we hope will be a sign of their commitment to moving forward down a transparent path for authorizing digital billboard permits that give all residents and all companies a fair stake in the process.”

Representatives of CBS Outdoor declined to comment on the ruling. Clear Channel issued a statement attributed to its vice president of marketing and communication, David Grabert.

“Clear Channel Outdoor has complied with Judge Green’s decision and turned off our signs. However, we will take all legal steps to renew operation of our signs in order to serve our customers and the community. Turning off these signs, even temporarily, hurts the community and the economy of the city of Los Angeles by eliminating a vital public safety and community resource and a valuable effective advertising tool for local and national businesses,” he said in the statement.

Hathaway placed the blame for the proliferation of digital billboards on Delgadillo, and claimed that the former city attorney “sold” the agreement to the council members, who were eager to reduce billboard blight in Los Angeles. Hathaway added that the digital billboards seemed to pop up overnight, without allowing residents to weigh-in on whether they should be allowed near their neighborhoods. The illumination from the billboards disturbed nearby residents, creating a ”strobe-like” effect when the ads changed, according to Hathaway. The city council has since worked to create a revised sign ordinance that would allow for digital billboards in sign districts such as Hollywood and around the Staples Center and L.A. Live, but not adjacent to residential neighborhoods.

“We are not saying, ‘No digital billboards, period,’” Hathaway said. “Hollywood is a sign district, and they have been there for a long time. I can live with that. The area around L.A. Live, I think of it as kind of like Times Square, and they are OK there.”

City Councilman Tom LaBonge, 4th District, added that he is against any new digital billboards outside of sign districts, and that he would fight any plans to install them along Wilshire Boulevard or other places within the 4th Council District.

“I don’t want to see them proliferate,” LaBonge added. “There is nothing like that along the Miracle Mile, and I don’t want to see them there. The only thing I want in that area is ‘Urban Light’, the gateway to LACMA. No billboards.”