JCDecaux wins 8-year outdoor TV contract for Shanghai Metro from Vision Media

Before this year, the contract to operate the 23,000 digital screens on Shanghai Metro was held by OOH competitor VisionChina Media. There are 20,000 17-inch screens in trains and 3,000 42-inch screens on station platforms.

STDecaux had a prior agreement for advertising resources within the Shanghai Metro network—but that included only lightboxes and wall stickers, not video screens.

Consequently, STDecaux will cover nearly 38,000 media displays on 13 Shanghai Metro lines.

Jean-Charles Decaux, chairman of the board and co-CEO of JCDecaux, said the addition of the TV advertising business is "strategically important to strengthen JCDecaux’s product range in China metros". 

VisionChina Media said that the termination of its contract with Shanghai Metro will lower the company's fixed media costs and improve operating margins. Its contract period began in January 2009 and was terminated in September 2012 without any form of penalty or compensation, according to the company.

Between then and January this year, it continued to operate Shanghai Metro's video screen network on a non-exclusive agency basis by paying media costs based on time slots purchased on fixed per-minute rates.

According to Limin Li, chairman and chief executive officer of VisionChina Media, the company was "released from unreasonably high fixed-media costs and resulting operating losses in Shanghai" after its contract termination.