TOM PULLAR-STRECKER

BILLBOARD company iSite Media has spent several hundred thousand dollars on a giant electronic screen at Wellington airport, in part to capitalise on the extra traffic expected from the Rugby World Cup.

The screen is made up of 32 ultra-thin 46-inch screens made by Japan's NEC, which cost $8000 each, and is remotely-controlled via the internet from iSite's Auckland office.

Commercial manager Rob Forsyth says iSite plans to use the screen to broadcast news, information and social media as well as advertisements, some of which could be interactive.

"We could tap into Twitter feeds, so we could put in a keyword like 'Wellington airport' and see what people were saying about it on Twitter or on Facebook.

"The system has the software and the intelligence to integrate that quite easily."

Though it may not seem an environmentally-friendly way to get messages across, Forsyth says the screen uses only "slightly more" power than the static billboard it replaced, which was backlit day and night by fluorescent tubes.

ISite operates nationwide but was owned by the airport until it was sold to its major shareholder, NZX-listed Infratil, for its book value of $10 million just over a week ago. Last year, it contributed a sizeable $22.8m to the airport's total revenues of $114.7m.

A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast the value of the billboard and other "out-of- home" advertising market would grow from $65m to $81m in 2015.