Telstra and its plans with JCDecaux to install digital advertising screens on payphones across Australian have taken a hit in the Federal Court.
A judge, in an appeal by city councils of an earlier judgement in March which would have allowed the payphones, has ruled that screens to be installed in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, are not “low-impact facilities” and require planning approval.
The councils argued that the 1800 screens were intended to be used for the display of commercial advertising once they were installed.
Telstra, which has the right to install public payphones and display ads for its own services without approval from authorities, argued the screens were not, at least initially, for commercial purposes.
The councils said the new payphones were just a way of bypassing local planning regulations and the permission of the landowners in the name of revenue-generating advertising
Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore once described the payphone booths as a “Trojan horse” for advertising.
Telstra is modernising its payphone network. The upgrade involves the replacement of dated payphones and booths with new payphone cabinets, including a shelf structure with open glass sides, housing a payphone and a digital screen.
The larger versions of the payphone are more than three metres high and one metre wide. The back of the booths, unseen by any user of the payphones, have a large digital screen.
The judge’s latest ruling: “It is an obvious feature of the new payphone cabinets that the rear screen offers a large advertising space – a digital billboard.
“Plainly, the rear screen does not provide a service to payphone users, who would interact with the payphone on the front side of the cabinet. It provides a digital advertising space able to be viewed by members of the public passing by.”
In 2017 Telstra signed an agreement, called an Out of Home Advertising Program Agreement, with AdBooth Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of global outdoor company JCDecaux.
The judge described Telstra's position as an apparent paradox.
On the one hand, Telstra argued that the payphone cabinets are low-impact and not to be used to display commercial advertising.
At the same time, Telstra applied for planning permission to display commercial advertising on the payphone cabinets.
"It is passing strange that Telstra has applied to the Melbourne City Council for planning permission to display commercial advertisements on its proposed new payphone cabinets while asserting that the new payphone cabinets are low-impact facilities which, relevantly, are required to be facilities that will not be used for commercial advertising," says the judge.
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