Cross-posted from Eye Daily.
Yesterday, the executive committee approved signing the 20-year, multi-million dollar street furniture contract with Astral Outdoor Media. For more on yesterday’s meeting, check out your favourite local paper or website.
In the meantime, here’s a little list I put together based on numbers reported in these articles plus a couple others:
STREET FURNITURE BY THE NUMBERS
Number of years the contract will last: 20
Value of the new street furniture: $202, 000,000
Cost Astral will pay to maintain it: $294,000,000
Cost of the street furniture if the City of Toronto paid for the infrastructure itself: Unknown
Total amount of ad revenue Astral is expected hand over to the city over the next 20 years: $429,000,000
Total benefits to the city: $900,000,000
Percentage of ads that will disappear from city streets: 14%
The increase in square footage of advertising space that will appear on city streets: 11%
Number of thumbs up Mayor David Miller gave the deal: 2
Date city council is scheduled to debate the contract: May 23
Number of complaints of illegal billboards and signs that city staff are investigating: 175
Number of those billboards that belong to Astral: 23
Number of illegal billboards posted on illegalsigns.ca: over 350
Number of access requests Rami Tabello has submitted to the city: 625
Number of requests that have been completed: 338
Amount of money the city was supposed to receive per year from Eucan, the company that owned and operated Toronto’s recycling bins after taking them over from OMG Media in 2005: $2,000,000
Amount of money the city actually received per year: $500,000
