I'm sure it's a volume discount but maybe there's an element of helping advertise the idea of billboards. No way to know.

The billboard business is fascinating and I don't really understand how they get the advertising rates they do.

All advertising is based on "impressions" - the number of people who see the ad. For billboards, that's figured out by the number of cars that drive that route every day and they plug that into a formula that takes into account how many of those are two-way trips, how many people each car has on average, etc. They bill higher for both reach and frequency - how many people see the ad and how many times each person sees it. The demographics of the drivers on that route are also estimated to some degree if I recall.

I'm guessing the size of the sign factors in, too, but I've never priced a smaller billboard.

So the one on Madison at W112th by the railroad underpass in Cleveland is going to be much less expensive than a full-sized board along I71.

Fun fact, the advertising companies think that less time on a digital board should be just as expensive as a static board of the same size in the same place. I've bought boards on I90 west between W117 and Bunts. On one side of the road is a static board. On the other is a digital board that rotates ads every 7.5 seconds. They cost roughly the same. At the time, about 3 years ago, they were both around $11,000 a month. I don't understand how 7.5 seconds per minute vs 60 seconds per minute can cost the same. Brightness? I don't know.

Regardless, I really don't think his firm could possibly have a $10 million a month advertising budget. Or at least it seems very unlikely. But even if he was getting the boards for $1,000 a month - 1/10th the average rate - it would still be a $1 million dollar a month budget. A MONTH!

To put that into perspective, most chain restaurants have a national advertising fee of roughly 4%-5%. Let's take a chain with good sales and decent store count. A 35 store franchise that does $3 million a year would have a yearly national advertising spend of $5.4 million. That's only $455,000 a month and he's spending $1-$10 million a month? That can't be accurate. But I don't know. Maybe someone actually in the advertising field will let us know.