A Different Spin for Ads on the Bus
June 6, 2006

Massachusetts Firm Offers Commercial-Radio Service

By ROBERT TOMSHO, Wall Street Journal

Reviving the debate over advertising in public education, a Massachusetts start-up is seeking agreements with school districts to broadcast commercial radio programs, complete with ads, on school buses.

BusRadio, of Needham, Mass., said it aims to begin broadcasting to more than 100,000 Massachusetts students in September and to expand nationwide in 2007. The closely held company, which offers school districts a percentage of ad revenue, has signed contracts with districts in Massachusetts, California and Illinois, said Michael Yanoff, chief executive officer. Several districts said they will receive 5% of the revenue generated by the free broadcast service.

"Our goal is to be able to give enough money back to the school systems so that they can enhance their transportation systems," Mr. Yanoff said.

He said his company's custom-designed radio programs, which will be broadcast through bus speakers, are designed to tamp down misbehavior and reduce student exposure to inappropriate on-air programs. Advertising will account for about eight minutes of every hour of BusRadio broadcasting, he added. BusRadio will have different programs tailored for different age groups, with material varying from school-safety announcements to disc jockeys telling jokes and playing hits by the likes of pop singer Avril Lavigne. BusRadio's plans were reported in Sunday's Washington Post.

School-bus radio is the latest chapter in the long-running battle over advertising aimed at public-school students. The issue first gained prominence in 1990 with the launch of Channel One, which offered schools free televisions and cable access if they would broadcast its programs and advertising. With many school districts strapped for cash, commercializing of schools has expanded to include textbook advertising and naming rights to school buildings and stadiums.

Commercial Alert, a consumer-advocacy group in Portland, Ore., opposed to such advertising, yesterday called upon Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to bar BusRadio from the state's school buses. Howard Schaffer, a spokesman for the Public Education Network, a Berkeley, Calif., association of foundations that raise money for public schools, said the budget troubles of many school districts are "making it easier for corporate people to go into schools and offer them things that would have previously been verboten or cast aside."

A spokesman for the Boston Public Schools said the district isn't interested in BusRadio's proposal after a long debate a few years ago about advertising on the outside of buses.

Officials at an array of other Massachusetts school districts, large and small, say they are weighing proposals. Sandy Gifford, transportation director for the Barnstable Public Schools in Barnstable, Mass., said the district completed a two-week trial of BusRadio and hopes to have it in all of its buses by fall. "The feedback I got from our drivers was that they loved it," she said.