• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 16, 2013

Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor were supposed to shut down 77 digital billboards around Los Angeles Monday, following a court order from a California Superior Court Judge on Friday giving the operators three days to pull the plugs. Sixty-seven of the signs affected belong to Clear Channel, and the remainder belong to CBS.

On Friday, California Superior Court Judge Terry Green gave the billboard giants until 5 p.m. on Monday to turn the lights out on their digital billboards. He ruled that a deal struck by the operators with the Los Angeles City Council in 2007 -- allowing the conversion of hundreds of static billboards to digital displays -- violated the city’s own laws.

The deal was challenged by a third out-of-home advertising company, Summit Media, which argued it favored the bigger billboard operators unfairly.
 
CCO and CBS suffered a legal defeat in November, when a panel of three judges ruled that permits for 100 digital billboards around Los Angeles were void because the L.A. City Council had no right to issue them, citing the city’s own 2002 law forbidding conversion of static billboards to digital displays. The court will rule on the fate of 22 signs still in operation on Tuesday.
 
Clear Channel told the Los Angeles Times it would pursue all legal means to restore the digital billboards to service, and according to some legal observers, the next step for CCO and CBS is taking their case to the California Supreme Court. Some members of the city council are said to be considering new legislation that would allow CCO and CBS to bring their digital billboards back on line.  

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