Many mea culpas to God and Eller Media Co.

Last week’s Advertising and P.R. column claimed that a wall-sized Eller sign in downtown Los Angeles that is currently portraying an installment of the national “Message From God” campaign was illegal. Not true.

Although there are a number of wall-sized signs in Los Angeles that violate the city’s sign ordinance, which states that off-site billboards can be no larger than 800 square feet, the sign identified in the column is one of 10 that are officially exempt from the ordinance. That’s because the law was passed in 1987, and the signs existed before that so they have been “grandfathered” into the ordinance.

All 10 of the legal wall-sized signs are controlled by Eller, according to company spokeswoman Dash Stolarz. Most of them are in downtown L.A., and they actually appeared long before wall-sized signs came into vogue.

Originally, these signs were created in 1984 by Nike Inc. as a spectacular way of attracting attention when Los Angeles hosted the Olympic Games that year. Eller later bought the company that owned the rights to the building frontage.