Florida blimp company produces enormous "TV in the sky"

ORLANDO, Fla. — Imagine a movie screen that floats 1,000 feet in the air and travels 15 mph.

An Orlando-based blimp company called The Lightship Group has made one, and it could be coming to a night sky near you.

The company has received Federal Aviation Administration approval for its new A-170 lightship, an enormous blimp that doesn't just say "Goodyear" or "Coca-Cola" on the side. Instead, it flashes their newest commercials, NFL football highlights, movie trailers or whatever else a company wants to put on its 70-by-30-foot LED screen.

"It totally rises above the clutter because this is the only one of its kind in the world," said Toby Page, Lightship group marketing director. "It's never been seen before, so it gets a huge amount of attention."

The new blimp is the crossroads of technological advances in both balloon and LED technology, with stronger lift power, a more durable "envelope" (the part that fills with helium) and lighter, higher-quality electronics. Similar television screens previously were just too heavy.

It will first be deployed overseas next month, though company officials, at their client's request, won't say where it's headed or who paid $5 million for a yearlong campaign.

Despite being around so long, the blimp advertising industry is still a relatively small one. Only a few dozen ships exist around the world — 17 of them run by The Lightship Group — partly because a good measure of the industry's effectiveness owes to its novelty.

Page said Lightship might produce seven or eight new ships over the next five years.

The LED screen on the current model can run only one color (red) during the day, with a full spectrum at night. But the next generation will be able to display the full rainbow even in sunlight.

The "screen" is really a series of several hundred rectangular pieces that resemble shingles, fixed by rubber buttons onto ultra-lightweight foam strips attached to the ship.

"Because the ship curves, every single one has to be adjusted so you get the perfect picture," Page said.

The blimp itself is 170 feet long, 55 feet high and 46 feet wide.

Big, but big enough to merit a $5 million advertising bill?

"People still notice those," said Richard Feinberg, professor of retail management at Purdue University and director of its Center for Customer Driven Quality. "Will I pay attention to another radio advertisement, will I pay attention to another TV ad? Probably not, but a blimp I'll look at."