What are the Oldest Ads on the London Underground?

What are some of the oldest ads you have seen on the Tube?  By this  I don't mean advertising that has been uncovered from the 1970's and 1980's (interesting though these old ads at Richmond station are).  I mean ads that CBS outdoor (the people responsible for ads on the London Underground) appear to have forgotten about.

We know that times are tough and that it might be hard to sell all the positions available on the network, but does that mean we have to glance at ads that are well past their sell by date.

Luckily Christmas adverts do seem to get taken down fairly quickly after the festive season, but there's a number of ads on the Tube for films, shows  and events that took place months - and in some cases - years ago.

London City Nights spotted this poster for 2009 film Nine only last week at Swiss Cottage! Even without going online to see when the film first came out, there's a huge amount of dust and dirt on this ad that automatically dates it.  Take a look around the next time you're on the London Underground, particularly in stations that are outside of zone one and see how many out of date ads you can spot.

Hopefully none of them date back as long as this, but you chances are you'll see ones for the Ideal Home Exhibition (from April) still up.  I used to see some awful ones around Holborn with some shouting city gent, advertising horse racing, that were also up for months after the event had finished.

I wonder just what proportion are expired.  10%? 25%? Maybe even more. And what's the deal here?  Even if there's not enough demand to fill all the spaces, why not give the space to charitable campaigns or even to TfL for their own in-house or public service ads?

Does anyone check or have a system in place for taking down old ads if there's no new PAID ads to put in their place?  Are CBS happy for some advertisers to be given months more free exposure than they've paid for?  Perhaps I'm the only person that this bothers.  Perhaps it's an experiment by CBS and the powers that be to see if anyone notices or cares.

If you see any old ones, tell us where and when.  Then we can track to see how long it is before they're taken down.

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London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Monday, November 26, 2012 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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