• MSNBC.com/AP, Thursday, December 14, 2006 12:31 PM

Digital billboards that allow marketers to change their message as often as they'd like are helping to boost renewed interest in the outdoor medium. Computer-controlled LED displays offer many new opportunities, including the ability for companies to sell space in a time-share arrangement.

They also open up high-profile locations to more advertisers. The same billboard, for example, could show a Starbucks ad for a mocha latte during the morning commute, movie listings from the local theater complex during the ride home and a late-night entertainment venue after the dinner hour.

Digital billboards are drawing mostly local advertisers, such as department stores and automobile dealers, but analysts expect more national clients to jump aboard as the high-tech signs become more pervasive. There are currently 500 digital billboards on U.S. roads, compared with about 450,000 traditional ones.

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