Will Arlington school buses attract ads?

Maybe the good folks at the Arlington school district administration building know something about how to make a lot of money selling advertising space these days. Maybe the Houston company that wants to represent the district in selling ad space on its big yellow buses knows exactly how to do it. Maybe ad spending in general is about to rebound.

Maybe. But school district leaders should be careful. Finding a new way to bring in money would be great for the deficit-plagued district, but you know what they say about things that sound too good to be true.

The president of Houston-based Alpha Media says that the district would keep 60 percent of the monthly revenue from ads on buses and could make up to $200,000 the first year. So if it’s such a big moneymaker, and with most Texas school districts running way short on money, how come you don’t see a lot more ads on school buses across the state?

Alpha Media has been in the business of selling and installing such ads for two years.

Those have not been good years for the advertising business generally. Advertising Age, a leading trade publication, says the nation’s top 100 media companies — the best of the best — scraped out only 0.8 percent revenue growth in 2008 and reported a 4.3 percent revenue decline in the first half of this year. That’s on track to make 2009 the first year of revenue decline since the magazine began gathering data in 1981. That’s not to say that Arlington’s administrators shouldn’t explore the possibilities. In fact, they almost have to. The district will have to dip into its reserve funds to the tune of about $12 million to balance this year’s operating budget. Significant revenue gains would be important.

But before they sign any advertising deal, those administrators should make sure the revenue will be worth the effort and time put into it. The Grapevine-Colleyville school district sold advertising space on its buses in 1997. It even sold ads on the rooftops of its two high schools in an effort to grab the eyes of airplane passengers flying into Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

But Grapevine-Colleyville spokeswoman Megan Overman says the district has left all of that behind because "we didn’t see the kind of return on it that made it worthwhile. . . "

One reason is that school buses are made to be noticed by other drivers, and the state tightly regulates where ads can be placed on them — mostly a limited area on the rear part of the bus behind the rear wheels. As one local administrator said, "Those buses are painted yellow for a reason, and you can’t just cover up a lot of that yellow with ads."

Good point. So, give credit to Arlington school officials for working hard to bring in more money, but don’t count on this idea as a sure thing.

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