A captive audience should in theory be great for advertisers, but how many ads do you now see in the post office?
From my point of view, I'd advertise maybe to try something 'new' out but how would I measure the return? Give a unique phone number, ask for customers to quote a code, a unique URL that someone has to remember (yes, some will go to the website there and then on their mobile but still). And what things do you advertise? Just the same ads as shown on normal TV?
So, you may get people advertising just to promote a brand rather than a particular service or offering, but how often do you change them when after a while the majority of people on your train are the same people who have seen your ad or just 'switched off'. Will ITV and the like promote TV shows for that evening? How quickly can the system be updated?
You see relatively few poster ads on a train (a stark contrast to the tube which has many different types of people, tourists and so on each day) as I presume the return on investment is poor (like placing banners on a site with millions of page impressions but hardly any clicks). The only difference being that in the online space, you can pay bugger all for the ad and pay only for responses - not something you can do on a train! No wonder advertisers are, right or wrong, dedicating so much more money for online campaigns than print or television (and therefore, train!).
I doubt advertisers will back it, so the company providing the service won't make any money. I may even call up to enquire about advertising rates and get an idea when it launches and further down the line to confirm my suspicions - although obviously nobody pays rate card figures.
The Heathrow Express doesn't really have ads either, but I presume the service is paid for out of ticket revenue and doesn't rely on advertising to fund it. The FCC system is presumably at no cost to First, so FCC could just end up with screens switched off after a while.
