NBC Universal has joined up with Clear Channel Taxi Media to put NBC content into New York City taxicabs. Beginning this month, 50 yellow cabs will be fitted with LCD monitors mounted on the back of the cab's front seats. The companies plan to eventually offer NBC programming to 5,000 of the 13,000 New York City cabs.
The monitors will show content from NBC Entertainment, CNBC, and MSNBC, as well as local New York NBC affiliate WNBC. Also available will be NY10, New York's Taxi Entertainment Network, which will offer local and national news, weather, sports, and entertainment.
"We are always looking for innovative ways to expose our brands to as many people as possible, not only to New Yorkers but also to the millions of people who visit New York each year," said Frank Radice, senior vice president for the NBC Agency, East Coast, in a press release. "This is the perfect vehicle--no pun intended--to make that happen."
Clear Channel will let riders turn the service off, unlike the voice PSAs starring famous New York icons that run inside the cabs. Those audio safety reminders have been the source of many customer complaints.
Comments (7)
Cool Idea.
Something like that makes more sense to me that having TV's in the checkout lines at Walmart. I mean come on I'm shopping...not watching TV. They have a TV in every other asile and one at every check out center. At least in the cab's people have nothing better to do than just sit there so it's kind of making sense. Heck America is just to TV crazed!
NBC is this a joke? People watch the meter, not a LCD TV.
NBC's taxi cabs
Not really a big deal, when most people by new cars now, here in NYC anyway, they get the tv/dvd package for the headrests. So why not have them in taxis? And if they are going to be there anyway, someone will find a way to put advertising there for the captive audience stuck in rush hour traffic. At least they are giving real content to advertise the network as a whole instead of just a steady stream of commercials.
Are they crazy? Is our nation so addicted to media that we need this now? Can't they a better way to spend money.
Will they air reruns of taxi? lol