Astral Media Outdoor unveiled a new 80-screen TV network yesterday at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport and advertisers already onboard include GM, Jamieson Laboratories, Mont Tremblant Resort and Groupe Promutuel.
The closed circuit network will feature exclusive English content from Global, with RDI supplying French material. Other content partners include Musique Plus/Musimax and Juste Pour Rire. ‘The network will be branded AeroTV,’ says Astral COO and EVP Luc Sabbatini. ‘These are brand new LCD screens installed in the departure lounge. And they have sound. This is a really good [opportunity] for advertisers because people usually wait for one or two hours at the airport so it’s a captive group.’ He adds that travelers are typically high-income, a group sought after by marketers.
The content, which consists of news, sports, fashion, business and humour segments, is packaged as an hour-long loop with 12 minutes of commercial air time. News from both Global and RDI will be updated up to eight times daily. Sabbatini says the network will feature six advertisers per month at most. When asked about sponsorship opps where brands can ‘own’ certain segments, he says: ‘We’re not there yet, [but] the network will evolve and we have the flexibility to do that.’ Ad rates on the network are approximately $19,000 gross for a month-long rotation at four times per hour. The airport’s departure lounge sees five million travelers per year.
