measured by The Post<\/a> at a staggering 99 decibels.<\/p>\nOnly audio advertisements for media, entertainment and sports will be allowed at first, and any ad that could be mistaken for an MTA message is forbidden.<\/p>\n
The fine print did not calm one critic who showed up at Thursday\u2019s board meeting clutching a copy of the dystopian novel \u201cFahrenheit 451\u201d and comparing the subway soundscape to propaganda loudspeakers in the book.<\/p>\n
The MTA has decided to test 30-second audio advertisements in select New York City subway and commuter train stations. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n
Aiki Orcar brought a dystopian novel as a prop to the MTA board meeting. During public commentary of the meeting, Orcar argued audio advertising would \u201cdegrade the passenger\u2019s experience to raise revenue a small fraction of a percent.\u201d MTA Live\/YouTube<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are playing ads through the same speakers that provide service updates,\u201d Aiki Orcar raged, arguing audio advertising would \u201cdegrade the passenger\u2019s experience to raise revenue a small fraction of a percent.\u201d He begged board members to squash the pilot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m asking for someone to step in and say audio advertising is a step too far,\u201d Orcar said.<\/p>\n
The MTA insisted in its document that riders would have a say before the program is made permanent or expanded.<\/p>\n
The MTA did not respond to questions from The Post about if they will expand the audio ad test to subway cars. UCG\/Universal Images Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n
MTA chair Janno Lieber bristled at reporter questions about the MTA\u2019s audio ad pilot. MTA Live\/YouTube<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MTA\u2019s assessment of the future viability of a Station Audio Advertisements program will be affected by the reaction of its ridership,\u201d the memo stated, and stressed that advertisers should remember the system is full of kids and riders from \u201ca wide diversity of cultural backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
MTA Chair Janno Lieber seemed to not have heard about the program to test audio ads when a Post reporter asked him about it after the MTA board meeting Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cTell me more about it because I don\u2019t know about it,\u201d Lieber snapped before pulling out his phone and looking at it. <\/p>\n
New York Post cover for Thursday, February 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
He then said the MTA will use customer surveys to gauge riders\u2019 opinions of the subway ads.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be adding a question to those customer surveys, and we\u2019ll do direct interactions with customers who are experiencing those ads as part of our regular customer outreach process,\u201d Lieber said.<\/p>\n
Two MTA spokespersons did not respond to The Post\u2019s inquiries about how much ad revenue the MTA generates or if the MTA has any plans to expand the audio ads to train cars.<\/p>\n
The MTA already floods riders with visual ads and celebrity\u2011voiced announcements, yet the revenue from all that marketing is such a slim slice of the MTA\u2019s finances that it didn\u2019t even appear as a distinct line in the agency\u2019s $21 billion operating plan for 2026.<\/p>\n
An AMNY report<\/a> last year said the MTA expected to earn a mere $175 million from all of its advertising in 2025, less than 1% of its massive $21 billion operating budget \u2014 leaving Orcar to wonder about the point of testing more ads.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWhile audio ads play, the MTA is a place that is entirely hostile to other thoughts,\u201d Orcar said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sounds like another subway nuisance! Straphangers already struggling to hear service updates over the roar of the subway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[36446,57,141,9,24,55,54,56,87,615,1687,58],"class_list":["post-145544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ads","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-politics","tag-subway","tag-subways","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}