NEW YORK & HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) Texas Center for the Missing (TCM) and Clear Channel Outdoor Americas (CCOA) (NYSE:CCO), subsidiary of iHeartMedia Inc., in cooperation with the Heidi Search Center in San Antonio, participated in press events throughout major Texas markets to launch a new digital billboard campaign calling attention to the ongoing searches for local missing children. Some families of missing children, along with local law enforcement working these unsolved cases, spoke at press events throughout the state today and urged the public to share any information they have regarding the disappearance or whereabouts of these children by calling 1.800.THE.LOST (1.800.843.5678).
Timed to begin with National Missing Children’s Day (May 25), and running through June, CCOA will display images of missing children from San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, and Houston, Texas on the company’s digital billboards across the state. Radio public service announcements will also be aired on iHeart Media radio stations throughout Texas highlighting the different missing children cases for Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and El Paso.
The country is in the midst of a persistent missing and exploited children crisis nationwide, with the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) reporting over 465,676 entries for missing children in 2016. Specifically, the Texas Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Clearinghouse received 57,389 missing person reports in 2015, 45,027 of which were juveniles.
But despite those latest stats, there’s encouraging news in the ongoing search for missing children. Between 2011-2015, more than 4,000 children that had been reported to NCMEC were recovered after they were missing for more than six months. The vast majority of them were recovered alive. Of those, more than 400 kids had been missing more than five years. More than 200 of those kids were missing more than 10 years and 56 kids missing more than 20 years came home!
According to NCMEC, photos are one of the most vital tools for law enforcement when searching for a missing child, and have the power to produce leads that can help law enforcement give families’ answers and help safely recover children. The new billboard campaign enables NCMEC and TCM to reach a broad audience across Texas by distributing photos of missing children in targeted areas that can aid law enforcement with a search.
“We know that photos bring missing children home and we rely on our partners like Clear Channel Outdoor Americas to help us in our mission. We are grateful to them for the continued support to find missing children and helping to reunite them with their families,” Beth Albert, TCM, CEO, said.
“Public safety, and child safety in particular, remains a core tenet of our corporate social responsibility efforts,” said Michelle Costa, regional president, CCOA-Southern. “Our digital billboards have the ability to reach passersby in high-traffic areas as they are out and about. We hope our efforts can play a role in reuniting these children with their families.”
For regional missing children alerts http://www.missingkids.com/RSS
About Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc.
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings, Inc., (NYSE:CCO) is one of the world’s largest outdoor advertising companies, with over 590,000 displays in 35 countries across five continents, including 43 of the 50 largest markets in the United States. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings offers many types of displays across its global platform to meet the advertising needs of its customers. This includes a growing digital platform that now offers more than 1,100 digital billboards across 27 markets in the United States. Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings’ International segment operates in 19 countries across Asia and Europe in a wide variety of formats. More information is available at www.clearchanneloutdoor.com and www.clearchannelinternational.com.
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