Digital Signage and News Feeds

With a decline in newspaper sales, the rise of the internet, smartphone and other modern media, people no longer use traditional news outlets as their main source of news. Rolling news and platforms like Twitter, have given people a desire for immediate access to news, leaving newspapers as an antiquated method for receiving information; with the pages of most broadsheets and tabloids filled with day-old stories.

Digital signage is an ideal platform for displaying news. Digital signage screens can relay content instantly, disseminating it around a network of screens and providing breaking news, but there are as many opportunities for advertisers to combine news feeds with advertisements. News-feeds, interlaced with advertisements, especially on buses, trains and in transportation hubs, providing customers with information they want and advertisers with a captive audience base.

Hooking up to a news feed can be expensive, with subscription services to news agencies priced fairly high, but with the increased use in news feeds on such screens, the revenue generated from advertising must make it worthwhile for such industries.

Weather and Travel

News doesn’t always have to be about current affairs, politics and the latest entertainment gossip, either. Weather and travel information are just as appealing to people. Providing the latest local travel news and weather forecasts for the day can even encourage people to seek out the screen (especially in countries like the UK where weather is a national obsession).

Industry News

But news doesn’t have to come direct from national news agencies; industry news in different sectors can appeal just as much to customers and patrons. Football stadiums running digital signage screens often relay the latest club and transfer news to keep fans informed of the latest developments concerning the club, while institutions like colleges, religious buildings and community centres use outdoor digital signage to inform the local community of upcoming events, closures and other relevant information.

A Reuters information screen housed in an Armagard Enclosure at London’s City Pier on the River Thames (Picture thanks to Pixellent)