BILLINGS — In the spring of 2022, MET Transit in Billings purchased 239 bus benches from an advertising company called Blair Unlimited, which was previously in a concession agreement with the city transit system.
The company originally purchased the benches and placed them throughout Billings, agreeing to give 40% of advertisement sales to the city while it kept 60%. But when the concession agreement's time frame ended last spring, MET decided to buy the benches from the company and offer their own advertising packages.
And it turned out to be extremely lucrative.
“We were getting about 40% of the revenue that was generated by it. And we looked at it and thought, you know this is a great opportunity since this concession is ending for us to really figure out a way to use this to better benefit the city of Billings,” Rusty Logan, the transit manager for the Billings MET, said on Friday. “We’re actually creating a much larger revenue stream for the transit system, but we’re not going back out and tell the taxpayer that they have to foot the bill for that. It really just seemed like it was kind of a no-brainer for us.”
The benches, along with spare legs and matching bench seats, were purchased for $220,000.
“The overall contract for those benches was about $220,000. Which can seem like, whoa, that’s a lot for a couple benches," Logan said. "But the fair market value on those benches was over $900 a piece, so that actually calculates out pretty close.”
The bill is being covered by past and future advertisement revenue, fair revenue, and other similar city income streams. And while the price was high, officials say it was worth it.
“The revenue that we were previously generating on that program with the 60-40 cost share was about $100,000 a year in advertising revenue. Since we’ve taken that over, this fiscal year we’re on track for almost $210,000 in revenue. So it’s really been quite a boost that we can then invest right back into the transit system,” Logan said. "But within two years, it’s going to pay for itself, so that’s a pretty amazing turnaround time in my opinion."
There are currently around 185 to 190 benches in advertising contracts and around 40 that are vacant. Advertisements from previous contracts that ended since MET purchased the benches have been covered up with stickers to signify they are vacant.
"In the past, unfortunately, some of those people who vacated their contracts, they just weren’t changed out because the vendor just didn’t have the manpower to go out and remove those all the time. So sometimes we ended up with people who were still getting advertising that weren’t necessarily in a contract,” Logan said. “One of our quick solutions for that was just printing up these stickers so we could go out and make it available. And it’s funny because some of the ones we slap a sticker on, she’ll get a call within three hours for some of those prime locations."
And Logan said they are fully staffed now and will be completing maintenance on the benches when the weather warms up.
“We’re finally fully staffed on our maintenance side," Logan said. "So as the weather warms up we’ll have more guys out there replacing bench seats and so forth and getting everything up to tip-top shape."
And Logan said exciting changes will be coming soon.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff happening here at MET Transit. It’s going to be happening real quick,” Logan said. “People should start seeing a lot more convenience service on the street by the end of the summer."
To learn more about the advertising packages and prices, click here.
“It’s been a fun endeavor," Logan said. "It’s been very profitable for us so far. We hope to just continue to grow this program."
