Advertise in NY · guides, sellers, agencies
The buyer's desk for New York out-of-home advertising
Advertise in NY is a reference desk for people buying out-of-home media in New York City: a guide to each format, a directory of 32 sellers checked one by one, a scored list of agencies that plan and buy for brands, and a brief form a person reads. Every number names its source and date; none is an operator's rate.
Counted, not repeated
Four primary counts a planner can put in a deck. Each is the publishing body's own figure, not a vendor's round number.
The guides
Each one opens with the answer, then shows its working, and ends with the brief. Start with the question you are being asked.
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01
Who sells the Times Square screens, and what do they cost?
Times Square billboards: who sells them and what they cost
Fifteen companies sell the outdoor faces around the Bowtie. The two published rate guides disagree by three times on the same board, and the pedestrian count under every CPM is 220,000 or 360,000 depending on who you ask. Then see what the same budget buys on a taxi top through the district.
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02
Who sells the subway, and how many people actually ride it?
New York subway advertising: who sells the MTA, what the units are and how riders are counted
One company, OUTFRONT Media, sells every MTA subway ad under a concession running to 2030. Its page says 2.6 billion rides a year; the MTA's own count for 2025 is 1,281,883,362 subway rides.
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03
Why are there so few billboards in Manhattan, and who owns the ones that exist?
Billboards in New York City: who owns them, why zoning decides where they stand, and what the published rates say
Zoning keeps new advertising signs 200 feet from every arterial highway, which is why Manhattan has so few boards. Three national operators and one street-furniture franchisee sell most of them; none prints a price.
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04
Which formats can be bought in New York at all, and how does each one differ?
Advertising in New York City: every format, seller and rule
Seven formats, five regulators, four counting methods. One table with who sells each format, how its audience is counted, who writes its rules, the typical buy unit and where it loses.
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05
Whose paper are you actually signing?
NYC out-of-home directory: the sellers, verified one by one
The companies that sell out-of-home in New York City, checked against what each one actually controls: the owners and concessionaires, and the marketplaces that resell their inventory.
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06
Who plans and buys New York out-of-home for a brand?
NYC advertising agencies that plan and buy out-of-home
The specialists, the holding-company units and the street teams that sit between a brand and the sellers, scored on four written criteria anyone can check.
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07
Is wild posting legal in New York, and who pays the fine?
Wild posting in NYC: the posting law, the fines and the permitted walls
Section 10-119 of the city code bans posters on poles, curbs and shelters and presumes the advertiser named on the poster put it there; each poster is a separate violation.
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08
Can you paint an ad on a New York wall?
Mural and wallscape advertising in NYC: who paints, who sells, what zoning allows
To the Zoning Resolution a painted ad is a sign, so a mural that advertises something sold elsewhere is an advertising sign and follows the billboard rules.
Campaigns that actually ran in New York
No stock photography. Four frames from Firefly's New York campaign archive, shown with its permission and captioned from what is visible in each one: the brand, the format, the place and the year. Since October 2026 a frame runs on one site only.
Photographs: Firefly campaign archive, shown with permission.
Measured as well as photographed: a LoopMe-measured Firefly taxi-top campaign across Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Miami reported a 44% lift in brand recall and 46% in brand favourability among exposed audiences, published by the operator.
Four lines make a brief
- Where: boroughs, corridors or a single intersection
- When: the day the creative goes live and the day it comes down
- How much: a band is enough
- Judged on: the one number the buy has to move
The reply names the units that fit and the published ranges behind them, each with its source. This desk prints no rates of its own.
Brief received.
It is in the queue and will be read by a person. Expect a reply with questions rather than a quote.
Describe the New York campaign
Market, timing and the format decision still open. A person reads every brief and replies with questions, not a rate card.