Clear Channel has plans to go live

By SIMON HENDERY

Media multinational Clear Channel plans to expand its local presence by bringing its live entertainment division to New Zealand.

The Texas-based company already has a stake in New Zealand's largest radio company, The Radio Network, and is now beefing up its share of the outdoor advertising market through subsidiary Adshel.

On a day-long whistle-stop visit to Auckland yesterday, Clear Channel International's chief executive, Roger Parry, said the company planned an assault on the local live entertainment industry through its subsidiary SFX.

SFX runs more than 120 event venues in the United States and Europe, manages music tours, promotes events and conferences, and runs a talent management business representing athletes and broadcasters.

"We will now start very actively looking at the live entertainment business [in New Zealand]," Mr Parry said. "Now that Clear Channel is a reasonable-sized business here we will certainly be looking at extending into that.

"And if there are any New Zealand arenas for sale, for example, we might look seriously if we could add some value there by bringing in our arena ownership business."

An SFX executive would be in New Zealand scouting for possible business opportunities in the near future, he said.

Meanwhile, Adshel New Zealand is banking on increasing its turnover seven-fold as the company launches into an assault on the local outdoor advertising market.

It is placing 3000 new advertising spaces on bus-stops and other outdoor furniture across the country in a move aimed at increasing annual sales from $2.5 to $20 million.

Adshel's general manager, Len van der Harst, said the company now had contracts with 15 local authorities to build and maintain high-tech bus shelters which will be decked out with advertising space.

Outdoor advertising accounted for up to 13 per cent of total advertising spending in some European countries.

"But in New Zealand we are below 1 per cent of the total ad spent, and that provides us with one heck of an opportunity to expand," Mr van der Harst said.

The company has about 1000 ad spaces on the streets now and plans to boost that number to 4000 over the next three to five years.

Mr Parry said that by then he expected outdoor advertising in New Zealand to be on a par with levels in Australia 4 to 5 per cent of total advertising spending.

"You will see a substantial change in places like Queen St, where at the moment there are bus shelters but they are rather old fashioned. They are not carrying advertising.

"When you've got a series of 10 or 12 new ones going in there and when the ad agency guys are seeing those every morning and every evening, going in and out of the office, it will remind them that it's a very viable advertising medium."

Mr Parry said the New Zealand market could be compared with Ireland, where Adshel now runs 4000 advertising faces and turns over more than $NZ27 million.

"We are making a substantial financial bet on New Zealand that it will work. Having seen it, I'm pretty confident that it will."

Clear Channel runs businesses in 40 countries.

It has 900 radio stations and 19 television stations in the US, a stake in 240 radio stations in other countries and manages 700,000 outdoor advertising displays worldwide. Its gross revenue last year was $US2.99 billion.