2005 that over 200 million people saw the Times Square Ball drop at the building every year. With growing tourism and high traffic in the Times Square area (with a yearly average of over 100 million pedestriansalongside its prominence in media coverage of New Year's festivities, seen by a wide audience yearly), annual revenue from the signs grew to over $23 million by the year 2012rivaling London's Piccadilly Circus as the most valuable public advertising space in the world. Advertisers From 1996 to 2006, Nissin Foods operated a Cup Noodles billboard with smoke effects (an effect that had also been used by other Times Square billboards, such as the Camel Cigarettes sign). The Cup Noodles billboard was replaced in 2006 by a General Motors billboard featuring a Chevrolet branded clock. Due to cutbacks resulting from GM's bankruptcy and re-organization, the Chevrolet Clock was removed in 2009 and eventually replaced by a Kia Motors advertisement billboard. This billboard was itself replaced in 2010 by a Dunkin' Donuts display. In 1998, Discover Card replaced ITT Corporation as the operator and sponsor of the topmost screen on One Times Square as part of a ten-year deal. The deal came alongside the announcement that Discover Card would be an official sponsor of Times Square's 1999–2000 festivities. News Corporation (later renamed 21st Century Fox) replaced NBC as the operator and sponsor of the Astrovision screen in 2006. Sony returned to One Times Square in 2010, replacing the News Corp. Panasonic screen with a new high-definition LED display. In December 2007, Toshiba took over sponsorship of the top-most screen of One Times Square from Discover Card in a 10-year lease. The screen displayed not only Toshiba products but also videos about tourism in Japan. In 2008, upgrades to the upper portion of One Times Square commenced, including the installation of new Toshiba high-definition LED displays (known as ToshibaVision), and the redesign of its roof to accommodate a larger New Year's Eve ball, which became a year-round fixture of the building beginning in 2009. Toshiba announced that it would end its One Times Square sponsorship in early 2018, citing ongoing cost-cutting measures. References Notes Citations Sources External links 1904 establishments in New York City 42nd Street (Manhattan) Broadway (Manhattan) 1 Times Square Mass media company headquarters in the United States The New York Times 1 Times Square Newspaper headquarters in the United States Seventh Avenue (Manhattan) 1