Recently, the New York City’s MTA unveiled a new advertising scheme – on that involves watching TV while you ride the subway.

Passengers who hop on the Times Square shuttle to 42nd Street, or vice versa, are met with 10-inch video screens displaying highlights from past baseball games, and they will start including clips from games that happened the day before once the MBA playoffs begin in October. A recent article from the New York Times described the “makeover” as “the latest effort by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to increase its advertising revenue,” by introducing “video screens throughout one of its subway trains…that will play game highlights during Major League Baseball’s postseason playoffs.”

With four screens per car, passengers have been having overall positive reactions to the implementation of TVs in the subway cars. Some passengers lamented the fact that the TVs only occur in one set of cars, while others commented that the images sort of made them want to go to baseball games. Still other riders seemed rather indifferent to the changes remaining involved in their books, magazines, or iPods.

New York City has ventured into the realm of advertising on transportation vehicles already with the implementation of PATH Vision on its trains between the city and New Jersey. “More than 100 of the trains now display PATH Vision, news, sports, advertising and service updates through 25-inch screens at stations,” upping the sophistication and advancement of advertising services throughout that widely popular form of transportation for commuters.

As part of the “full body wrap” advertising campaign by TBS, a well known cable TV network, the network is paying to advertise its coverage of the MBA playoffs this year just as the History Channel’s series “Cities of the Underworld” was recently advertised on subway cars.

No official word on the expansion of the TVs to other subway cars just yet, but a spokesman for the MTA said advised, “Customers in a transit environment can expect increasing levels of sophistication in advertising.”

Looking forward to it.

Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.

Edited by Juliana Kenny