By Scott Miller
SCBIZ Daily Staff

COLUMBIA -- The state Board of Education banned billboard and broadcast advertising inside school buses last week, eliminating a potential $10.6 million revenue stream for schools.

The S.C. Department of Education had adopted a policy giving school districts authority to sell billboard ads on buses. All ads would have been subject to state and district approval.

Opponents, including some board members, worried about the impact of exposing children to the latest cell phones, trendiest fashions and fattiest foods on their way to and from school each day. Some state lawmakers also were concerned about the influence ads could have on children, but a legislative effort to ban such ads fell short.

“Buses are owned by the state, and the state needs to control what’s inside them,” said board Chairman Al Simpson, saying districts shouldn’t be able to decide whether ads would be allowed in the first place.

Simpson added the ban to this week’s meeting agenda at the request of several board members.

The board’s action also prohibits radio stations from being played on school buses. The Education Department had considered installing BusRadio, a private radio station played to more than 1 million students in 23 states.

No school district had sold advertising at this point. 

Education Department spokesman Jim Foster noted that any ads approved would not have subjected students to bad influences “just so districts could attract ad revenue,” as some feared.

“Ads that were harmful to students would have been automatically prohibited,” he said. “Ads for products that were unhealthy for students would have been prohibited. Any ads that a local district didn’t want, it could have nixed.”

Ads that received approval likely would have included billboards for colleges, universities and the military.

Foster said the department considered the ads at the request of several school districts that were trying to generate revenue.