Survey Reveals that Americans Are Suffering from Good News Deficit

New State-of-the-Art LG Billboard in Times Square Designed to Collect and Distribute Only Good News

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Dec 21, 2010, 06:14 ET

NEW YORK, Dec. 14, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- New consumer research shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans (83 percent) agree that the United States is suffering from a good news deficit, with six in 10 Americans saying they don't even know where to look for good news anymore. On the heels of this LG Electronics-commissioned study, the company is unveiling its plans to help address this issue with its newest interactive billboard in Times Square.

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This new LG billboard is in the heart of Times Square, above the corner of 45th Street and 7th Avenue, and will exist solely for the purpose of collecting and distributing good news. Helping to bring the billboard to life will be LG's first-ever Good News Ambassador, an animated character who will reside in the billboard and invite passersby to share their own good news via text message and tweets, giving them the chance to see their name and news in lights high above Times Square.

"Life's Good is much more than a motto to us," said Wayne Park, president of LG Electronics USA, Inc. "We want the people of New York and travelers from around the world to look up at our new LG billboard and smile, knowing that there is still a lot of good in the world."

The need for LG's Good News billboard seems evident. The national survey of 1,000 Americans shows that seven in 10 have all but given up on their nightly newscasts because they know that there will not be any good news shown, and nearly half of all Americans surveyed said that they can't remember the last piece of good news they've heard. Additionally, more than two-thirds of Americans report that the amount of negative news on television news programs has increased in the past year, with nearly a third saying that it has significantly increased.

Renowned happiness expert and life coach Sophie Keller added, "Hearing and sharing good news can directly affect the way people look at the world around them. Hard times have the tendency to snowball, and looking at the brighter things in life and celebrating these happenings can definitely help heal some of the wounds people have sustained in recent years and help people move forward more positively with their lives."

To start the spread of good news, LG is also teaming up with the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City which will help fund the School Gardens Initiative, a program designed to assist New York City schools in growing, maintaining and utilizing produce from their own gardens. School gardens can provide diverse benefits for our kids and communities by cultivating positive food attitudes, instilling environmental stewardship, providing hands-on learning, increasing physical activity and fostering community engagement.

LG's "Good News" Billboard spans 81 feet around the corner by 47 feet tall, making it the largest Full HD screen in Times Square at 4,200 square feet with a resolution of 1984x1136 and 10,000 Candela brightness. The five-story-high LED billboard offers superior image quality with content and animation that has not been seen on this scale; the billboard is also capable of four independent video outputs. Similar to LG's INFINIA HDTV series, this billboard has a virtually frameless design of four-inches. The cutting-edge high-definition LED technology is 15 percent more energy efficient than the billboard screen it replaced. The billboard includes an energy-saving feature that automatically controls brightness depending on the time of day and weather. What's more, LG has installed 13 of its high-performance solar modules on the roof, partially offsetting the amount of energy used from the grid.

About LG Electronics USA

LG Electronics USA, Inc., based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., is the North American subsidiary of LG Electronics, Inc., a global force and technology leader in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications. In the United States, LG Electronics sells a range of stylish and innovative home entertainment products, mobile phones, home appliances and commercial displays, all under LG's "Life's Good" marketing theme. For more information, please visit www.LG.com.