Memphis, TN Outdoor Lighting: Billboard Lighting (2026)

Section 4.9.6.E.2.d of the Memphis and Shelby County Unified Development Code, the Brightness standard for changeable copy and video signs, requires every electronic or digital display board to carry an installed ambient light monitor and to keep that monitor running at all times so the sign's brightness tracks outdoor light levels automatically, cutting output at night and under cloudy skies. The default compliance method is a foot-candle test: the sign cannot increase brightness by more than 0.3 foot candles over the ambient level, measured with a foot-candle meter at a preset distance keyed to the sign's face size, ranging from 100 feet for boards under 200 square feet up to 250 feet for boards larger than 385 square feet, with the meter aimed at a point three to six feet off the ground directly opposite the face.

An owner who would rather not run the foot-candle test can instead show the sign never exceeds a daytime luminous intensity of 7,500 nits or a nighttime luminous intensity of 300 nits, an alternative standard built into the same subsection. The rule also reaches malfunctioning signs: Item e of the same subsection requires any video sign that glitches into unintended flashing, motion or movement to be repaired or disconnected within 48 hours of the malfunction by the sign's owner or operator, so a stuck-bright billboard can't simply stay lit while a repair is scheduled. These brightness and malfunction rules sit alongside the separate 200-square-foot cap on video sign area, which does not apply to permanent off-premise signs, and the residential buffer distances in the same section of Article 4.9. As part of the joint UDC, they apply to billboards within Memphis city limits as well as unincorporated Shelby County.