In the flashing, bustling advertising mecca that is Times Square, the screen is the biggest and the only one to cover an entire city block.

“Size matters in Times Square,” said Harry Coghlan, president of Clear Channel Outdoor New York, which is selling the ad space. Last week, as he stood on the corner of 46th Street and Broadway watching test images of skiers and fashion models illuminate the new display, tourists turned their heads to look at the sign, their jaws actually dropping.

“Sometimes it just comes down to wanting to stand out, and it comes down to ego,” he said.

Both Clear Channel Outdoor and Google declined to comment on the terms of Google’s deal. Ad executives said that Google snapped up the display as soon as it went on the market for an exclusive, long-term commitment, so the negotiated rate could have been much lower than the $2.5 million price tag. Rates for Times Square billboards can vary widely, depending on location, size, duration and screen quality, among other factors, ad executives said.

Each day, more than 300,000 pedestrians are estimated to enter the Times Square “bow tie,” where Seventh Avenue intersects with Broadway between 42nd and 47th Streets. While New Yorkers generally breeze through, their heads in their phones, the location is a tourist destination, and the billboards are a large part of the attraction. The locale receives even more views when it is broadcast across the world, especially during big events like the New Year’s Eve celebration.

About eight in 10 people in Times Square reported that the signs and the advertisements add to the appeal of the destination, according to a survey of 2,000 respondents in Times Square commissioned by Times Square Alliance and other groups. About half of the respondents reported taking photographs of the signs, and 60 percent said they had spent more than five minutes looking at them.