They met with Clear Channel; they met with KOMP 92.3-FM. They're hoping to set up meetings with the Hard Rock, the Palms, and billboard and media companies Lamar Outdoor Advertising and Viacom. They've lobbied the Gaming Commission and the County Commission, and they're drumming up a legislative agenda. The no-sex-on-billboards activists are making the rounds and, if only for a moment, they're claiming small victories.
"We've seen some improvement. The most egregious Hard Rock ads have come down. The Palms billboard was changed (to show no neathage). The KOMP signs (showing neathage) have come down," says Michael Wixom, founder of Main Street Billboard Committee, a group of local activists who aim to tame sexual advertising. "We're trying to reach out."
Last month, members of Wixom's group were scheduled to reach out to Clear Channel Inc.'s corporate headquarters in Texas to complain about sexed-up billboards—but the company's local reps made the pre-emptive move of contacting him here.
"They wanted to understand what our concern is. We had a very nice meeting," says Wixom. "We discussed the difficulties they face. We talked about our concerns with content. They realize that from an internal perspective, it's easier to establish those guidelines internally than to have those guidelines imposed upon them."
Clear Channel asked the Palms to cover up the neathage on its I-15 billboard—a prime advertising spot that costs $3,500 to $5,000 per month. "We're just trying to take a stance in the community," said Dan Scherer, Clear Channel sales manager. Clear Channel, which is set to run the Las Vegas Centennial, operates about 1,200 radio stations and 19 TV stations in the U.S, owns 770,000 billboards worldwide and 620 in Vegas and surrounding areas, and is perhaps known best for ousting Howard Stern.
"We reserve the right to refuse an ad," Scherer said. "Our guidelines are at our discretion."
And the corporation's discretion manifests inconsistently around the nation:
• In Crawford, Texas a year ago, four billboard companies refused to sell their ad space to run antiwar messages. But Clear Channel ran the antiwar message, purchased by Working Assets, a socially progressive telecommunications company, on its closest billboards in Houston.
• In Tucson, Arizona in January, Clear Channel refused to display a PETA ad that said "Boycott Iams" because Iams pet food is owned by Clear Channel's larger customer, Proctor & Gamble.
• In South Florida last year, a Clear Channel billboard advertising the French Connection United Kingdom clothing line said, "FCUK FM"—drawing complaints from nearby homeowners: "I believe in freedom of speech, but this is deplorable. It's in very bad taste," Tory Jacobs, president of a local homeowners association, told the Miami Herald. But Clear Channel didn't pull the ad.
• In Marrietta, Georgia local residents complained about a Clear Channel-owned radio station's billboard showing the Britney-Madonna kiss, and Clear Channel took it down.
It's clearly tricky business balancing the concerns of community activists and business interests. Here in Vegas, Wixom's group and like-minded others have shown some degree of resolve by attending, en masse, first the Gaming Commission's and then the Clark County Commission's billboard-related meetings this spring. The Gaming Commission ultimately charged the Hard Rock $300,000 for its risque ads, and the county board voted 7-0 to put a moratorium on new billboards in unincorporated areas.
In addition to showing political determination and meeting with Clear Channel, members of Wixom's group—actually, his wife Heidi and their kids—approached KOMP 92.3 radio station two weeks ago to discuss the station's busty ads.
"They just wanted to give their side. We listened to them and what they had to say," said John Griffin, KOMP program manager. "It couldn't have been more friendly."
"They were great people … They asked, 'What does it (a chesty billboard) have to do with radio?' and I explained that we've got a 98-percent male audience. We're a rock station. We do thousands of dollars of research about the demographics …
"It's become the community standard. And we're going to stay with what has become community standards. It's not our job to police these … If the whole community cleans up, if everybody cleans up, then let's clean up—I've got kids too. But we are also a business."
Griffin said the "chest ad"—a billboard filled with a KOMP T-shirt stretched across a buxom chest baring neathage—was a "highly successful campaign."
"And we're in the process of a new design with new billboards (because the campaign has run its 12-month cycle), and so these are going to be coming down … But it doesn't mean they might not go back up in a year or six months, and I told (Wixom) that …
"But we said that what we can do is work with the sign company so that they're not over schools. We didn't have control of location—there are different contracts, one is a rotator program where they rotate year round. That's how we get some of the best rates," Griffin said.
Michael Wixom seems satisfied with the group's progress. "The positive thing is as long as people talk and explore this we can create some solutions."
But, says Griffin, the final definition of community standards depends on the larger community—Sin City: "I don't want to say, 'Well, it's Vegas,' but … It's Vegas."