Tunnel ads come to L.A. -- Welcome to the 'Blade Runner' era

Bad enough that billboards have gone video and talking gas pumps pimp snacks and oil changes. Now subway patrons passing through tunnels near the Universal City station will literally ride through movie trailers playing on the walls around them, Steve Hymon, our traffic guru, says. Here's how the MTA puts it in a news release:


The dark subway tunnels briefly turn trains into mobile movie theaters where passengers are dazzled by colorful, live-action video segments in this new, innovative form of advertising.

The MTA's jazzed about the $240,000 it will earn from forcing subway riders to watch the ads. It's enough to drive commuters from the trains and back into cars. But you're not safe there, either, Hymon says.

Marketing firms are also eying another lucrative market: the placement of ads on the painted stripes between parking spaces. In the past, the MTA has said that allowing stripe ads could net them $108,000 annually.

-- Veronique de Turenne LA Times