The battle for eyeballs and outdoor advertising space in Toronto is heating up once again, just four years after the city enacted a new sign bylaw.

At the centre of it all are digital billboards.

Opponents call them “visual pollution.” They say they pose a dangerous distraction to motorists and emit vast amounts of light that could potentially disrupt the sleep of thousands of downtown condo dwellers.

On the other side is the outdoor sign industry. It says there is no statistically significant link between electronic signs and car crashes and that the brightness of the signs can be adjusted within specific limits. Digital signs contribute to the vibrancy of the city, they say.

So one might assume the industry would be encouraged, and critics discouraged, that a city-hired consultant is recommending the expansion of areas where electronic signs be allowed to include commercial and employment zones — but not in residential areas.

In fact, neither side is satisfied.

What nobody disputes is that digital billboards are an extremely lucrative business, especially in Canada’s most populous city. They’ve come a long way since an east-end car dealer’s billboard featured a 3-metre-tall female cutout swaying back and forth on an electric-powered swing. It was once one of Toronto’s best-known landmarks.

Today, electronic signs attract much higher fees than traditional print billboards because the content displayed is fully changeable, allowing multiple advertisers to share space and target their messages to the time of day. McDonald’s can market McMuffins in the morning and Big Macs in the afternoon. Adjustments can be made by a software operator off-site.

Four years ago, Out-of-Home Marketing Association of Canada estimated the gross annual revenues to the industry in the Toronto market would be approximately $72 million annually, based on an estimate of $17,300 per sign face, multiplied by 4,153 signs. However, the city did its own calculation and estimated the industry earns between $141 and $220 million a year in annual revenue.

Electronic signs have “invigorated” the outdoor sign industry with their “maximum reach” and “massive brand exposure,” according the OMAC website. (Members of the association include Astral Media, Pattison Outdoor, CBS Outdoor and Zoom Media.)

Large digital screens “generate wow factor impressions” when they hover over “key arterial routes and busy urban streets in all major markets,” OMAC boasts. To access this prime real estate, outdoor advertising companies employ a small army of lobbyists who are frequent visitors to city councillors.

The sign industry’s digital push coincides with a growing number of people willing to pay not to be advertised to — people who subscribe to Netflix, listen to satellite radio or use spam blockers, for example.

“The industry is saying …people can’t ignore us when they’re outside. They have to leave their house, they have to leave their cars and go to work, and they can’t choose not to look at our signs,’” says Max Ashburn, communications director with Scenic America. The Washington, D.C., non-profit organization “is dedicated to preserving and enhancing the visual character of America's communities.”

In an online article posted in June, Marco Boer, a Maryland-based senior analyst and consultant to the digital printing industry, wrote that “electronic billboards are on an unstoppable path of growth due to the profit they provide their owners.” One large publicly traded billboard-advertising conglomerate obtains 10 times more profit from electronic billboards than traditional printed billboards, he noted.

With the stakes that high, it’s not surprising signs are back on the agenda four years after Toronto City Council restricted digital billboards to Yonge-Dundas Square and the Gardiner Expressway.

“The industry pushed relentlessly,” says Alison Gorbould, a long-time public space activist.

The sign bylaw passed in 2010 allowed the industry to submit “site specific applications” that permitted electronic signs in other parts of Toronto if certain criteria were met.

“They made application after application, all of which had to go through council. Council got pretty grumpy about this — why were they having to look at signs on a case-by-case basis? They had a lot of other issues to talk about.’”

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Last year, council asked staff to revisit the issue. They, in turn, tapped Martin Rendl, the same consultant who studied signs for the city in 2009 when there were still relatively few digital billboards.

Rendl’s recommendation that digital signs be permitted in commercial and employment areas may sound like expansion, but the industry argues it will actually pull the plug on any increase.

“The reality is that the restrictions of distancing from other signs, coupled with the terms of the existing bylaw, would not allow for new digital signs,” OMAC president Roseanne Caron wrote in email.

Ted Van Vliet, manager of the city’s sign bylaw unit, agrees Toronto is not about to turn into a digital billboard jungle if the consultant’s recommendations are adopted by staff and, ultimately, city council. He cited rules already in place that would “limit the sites where these signs could be placed.”

For instance, an electronic sign can’t face an open space, such as a park, or be placed anywhere there’s a residential building within a 250-metre radius.

“There will be some locations where new digital signs may be permitted, however in many cases it could require the removal of an existing sign or signs in order to accommodate new ones,” Van Vliet says.

“This is an incredible dodge,” responds Gorbould, adding, “this is a thin edge of the wedge situation.”

“What they mean is that, given the number and placement of existing billboards, it would be difficult to find new locations for billboards,” Gorbould wrote in an email. “However, the industry doesn’t want to keep using all their old, less lucrative billboards and add digital signs. Ideally, they’d like to go all digital.”

Gorbould cites an example on this week’s council agenda: CBS Outdoor wants to erect a giant electronic sign at 486 Evans Ave., next to the Gardiner Expressway, in exchange for removing four older billboards. Staff have recommended denying the request because of the proposed sign’s height, lack of compatibility with the area, and the city’s policy against signs within 400 metres of a highway.

Gorbould agrees that with Toronto’s proposed strategy the city could actually end up with fewer signs. It already has 4,000 “third-party signs” — owned by advertising companies — or one for every 623 residents. Only 47 of the city’s 4,000 third-party signs are electronic billboards.

“By square footage of billboard clutter, this seems like a win. But in terms of intrusiveness, light pollution, oppressiveness, being impossible to ignore — plus the safety issue — I think this would be a huge loss.”

Gorbould and the Toronto Public Space Initiative are calling for a moratorium on new electronic billboard applications. Some U.S. cities, such as San Francisco, Denver, Houston and St. Louis, have banned them outright.