The Obama administration continues to deport Haitians back to their hellish homeland, where a deadly cholera epidemic awaits. The Center for Constitutional Rights, among others, has been pressuring the administration to change its policy, and the group recently paid for a video ad in Times Square with the slogan: "The cholera epidemic in Haiti is killing thousands. Why is the USA still deporting people to Haiti? One deportee has already died." But without explanation, CBS Outdoor dropped the ad, which you can see for yourself here here:
Times Square Ad Blasting Haiti Deportations Yanked By CBS Outdoor
MTA Ad Revenues Take A Hit During Recession
We all know that the MTA is in dire financial straits, thanks to dwindling real estate tax revenues, debts from previous borrowing, the rising expense of maintaining the different systems, and many other reasons. Today, the NY Times decides to look at yet another area of lower expected revenue— advertising on mass transit and in various stations.
CBS Brings Free Wifi to Midtown
If you've been paying for Wifi at coffee shops between 42nd Street and Central Park South and between 8th and 6th Avenues, you can start saving up for more grande mocha lattes. CBS will be creating a "CBS Mobile Zone" with free wifi in midtown. In turn, CBS will lead users to an ad-supported homepage. CenterNetworks says that Citi and Salesgenie.com have already signed up. CBS, which owns CBS Outdoor, will wire billbards, MTA displays...
Public Transport Can Smell Like Ass But Not Show It
Aw, check it out: The MTA has removed Georgi Vodka ads from buses because they are too racy. The distributor, Star Industries, is considering suing the MTA, and its CEO, Martin Silver, says, "What's wrong with a girl in bikini? Just take a walk around New York. You see you plenty of ads that are much worse." But Silver might have another reason to be upset: The NY Sun reveals that his daughter, Laurie, is the one whose butt is in the ad (it's so much cheaper than getting a real model); Silver said about her, "Best buns in the city. Her friends call her 'buns' now." Uh, Joe Simpson anyone?
Does the Bahamas Want You Dead?
Two weeks after we wondered about the Bahamas Tourism Board's subway advertising, the NY Times takes up the task. It turns out that CBS Outdoor will remove two of the ads, because they are bad for subway behavior: The "How to turn a seat into a hammock" ad and the "Flyflish with a cellphone on subway tracks" ad (the "Subway snorkeling" and "Use your umbrella as a golf club" ads are safe). Well, duh. As amusing as they would be, Gothamist would get spooked when we'd see this poster of the ONCOMING train as the figure is cellphone-flyfishing. (Yes, we're a big ol' scaredy cat.) And the Post seems to have the first post-subway rules incident where the police ticketed a woman for putting her shopping bag (from Whole Foods, natch) down on the seat next to her on the F train - and the train was pretty empty! The CBS Outdoor spokesperson told the Times, "We don't act as censors but clearly if an ad advocates something that compromies the safety of the community, we will not post or in fact act to remove the said ad copy." The ad agency behind the ads is Fallon, which says they are "great." Gothamist would agree they are interesting, but since Fallon no longer has a NY office, we assume they just want idiot New Yorkers to kill themselves or get fined.

