News – London Tube Construction Delays Lead to Outdoor Digital Signage Legal Row

One of the most prevalent out of home digital signage networks in London, and perhaps the entire UK, situated through the London Tube network, may all go blank before the 2012 Olympics due to a bitter row between advertisers CBS Outdoor and London Underground.

CBS Outdoor, which is the sole digital signage advertiser throughout the London Underground, said last week that they intended to terminate its contract with the Tube managements London Underground, three years early and just before next year’s Olympic Games.

CBS Outdoor, one of the most prolific out of home and outdoor digital signage advertisers in the UK, say that London Underground have inhibited the company’s installation of digital signage displays around the Tube network due to London Underground’s construction plans, causing CBS’s costs to over-run. CBS Outdoor, whose contract with London Underground is worth hundreds of millions of pounds, is suing London Underground for what they say are substantial damages.

This is not the first time to the two companies have become embroiled in a legal battle since the advertising deal was struck in 2006. Tasked with replacing all of the Tube’s static media with digital signage systems, CBS Outdoor were contracted to pay for the costs of the screen network and rely on advertising revenue to recoup their costs; however, when the financial crisis hit in 2008, CBS Outdoor were left with hefty costs and not enough revenue to pay for them.

London Underground have said that CBS Outdoors claims were “spurious” and that they doubted the screens would go blank in time for the Olympics, stressing that the contract with the out of home advertisers gives London Underground ownership of the entire infrastructure enabling them to find another advertiser.

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