Clear Channel Spectacolor, the U.S. market leader in spectacular sign displays and a division of the world’s largest outdoor advertising company, today announced the creation of the Times Square Network™. The network is a new, fully-integrated digital media platform combining the best of television, out-of-home advertising and live event elements and the SpectacolorHD giant video screen at 47^th Street at New York’s Duffy Square.

“Increasingly, if it’s happening in Times Square, it’s happening on SpectacolorHD,” said Harry Coghlan, president of Clear Channel Spectacolor. The company has hosted viewing events this year for President Obama’s inauguration, the Tony Awards, and Times Square’s first “Movie on Memorial Day,” among others. The digital screen also supports mobile messaging to nearby devices and serves as an anchor for experiential marketing programs with Web site tie-ins.

“When we built SpecHD, we knew this attraction could also support a new model,” added Coghlan. “We knew that we could enable true interaction with its audience, going beyond traditional one-way broadcasts to create true two-way conversations. This network will give any visitor the opportunity to become part of the Times Square experience, and to extend that experience beyond the physical borders of the Square.”

A collection of short-form segments, TSN programming will be broadcast from the SpecHD screen and on a companion Web site, and will integrate mobile devices and the Web as both broadcast and interaction media.

The network has three elements:

• a studio that will generate live content and serve as a production center;
• a street crew that will roam Times Square with cameras, including visitors in what’s happening up on the SpecHD screen; and
• a companion Web site that lets visitors experience Times Square before they arrive as well as carry the experience home after they leave.

“We envision fully sponsored programming that puts you, as the visitor, in the center of the action,” added Coghlan. “Whether it’s interacting live with a person in the studio, engaging with a live master of ceremonies via our street crew cameras, or participating in polling or other group content displayed on the SpecHD board via mobile devices.”

Programs would focus on a single personality or popular interests such as food or entertainment. Other programming in development includes game, news and talk shows, as well as segments supporting major product launches such as films or consumer electronic devices.

“As entertainment, we believe this programming has the ability to create a new generation of Times Square personalities,” said Coghlan. “And needless to say, with this kind of interaction, consumer sampling has the potential to be a major, and very high-profile part, of TSN programming.”

Initially, original programming will be concentrated in a particular time of day. Broadcasts are expected to begin in 2010.

More than 565,000 people pass through Times Square each day, from commuters to business travellers to tourists. Set in the “Crossroads of the World” next to Duffy Square, Clear Channel’s SpectacolorHD digital video board has the sharpest image quality of any digital billboard in the United States, and is quickly becoming a focal point of Times Square.

About Clear Channel Outdoor

Clear Channel Outdoor (NYSE:CCO) is the world’s largest outdoor advertising company with close to one million displays in over 50 countries across 5 continents. In the United States, the company operates just under 200,000 advertising displays and has a presence in 49 of the top 50 Designated Market Areas. It also operates airport, rail, taxi and mall advertising businesses worldwide. Its Spectacolor (U.S.) and DEFI (international) divisions are the global market leaders in spectacular sign displays, including in New York’s Times Square. Clear Channel Adshel is the company’s international street furniture division, which operates over 3,500 municipal advertising contracts worldwide. Clear Channel Outdoor also operates digital displays and networks in most of its divisions. More information may be found by visiting www.clearchanneloutdoor.com.