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Most U.S. Teens Exposed to Smoking Images in TV Movie Trailers

9/5/2006

Study by the American Legacy Foundation® Finds Movie Trailers Deliver Images of Tobacco Use to Teens at Home

9/5/2006
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The majority of teens are being exposed to smoking images through movie trailers on television, according to a new study by the American Legacy Foundation®, a national independent public health foundation dedicated to preventing young people from smoking and providing resources to smokers who want to quit. Although tobacco advertising was banned from television in 1971, the study published today in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that during a 12 month period between 2001and 2002, 95 percent of youth in the United States saw tobacco use on television in the form of movie trailers.

“These findings are very alarming when we know that the depiction of smoking in movies can have such an enormous effect on youth smoking initiation,” said Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. P.H., President and CEO of the foundation and lead author of the report. “Smoking images are reaching beyond the silver screen and into the home, where tobacco advertising is supposed to be banned.” Several studies in recent years have identified a relationship between exposure to movies stars’ use of tobacco in films and youth starting to smoke.

For the study, Televised Movie Trailers: Undermining Restrictions on Advertising Tobacco to Youth, researchers conducted a content analysis of all movie trailers aired on television from August 1, 2001 to July 31, 2002 and determined tobacco use when it was clearly displayed. Of the 216 movie trailers reviewed, 14.4 percent included images of tobacco use. Based on ratings data provided by Nielsen Media Research, researchers were able to determine the frequency and amount that teens were exposed to tobacco-use images in movie advertisements. Key findings include:

  • Nearly 89 percent of youth saw at least one movie trailer with tobacco use three times.
  • 24 percent of R-rated and 7.5 percent of youth-rated movie trailers included images of tobacco use.
  • On average, youth ages 12-17 were exposed to 111 advertisements with tobacco use.

In the study, authors call on the public health community to take two specific steps to help reduce the influence of tobacco in movie trailers, including calling on the motion picture industry to eliminate such imagery from their trailers and asking the television networks not to air movie trailers with smoking imagery.

This information comes on the heels of a series of new announcements related to smoking in movies this summer.

  • On July 7th the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, released information from a previous study indicating that after decades of decline, smoking in the movies increased rapidly in the early 1990s and – by the year 2002 -- was back to levels last seen in 1950.
  • At the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in July, the American Legacy Foundation and Dartmouth Medical School released a new report finding that American youth continue to be exposed to smoking images in the majority of youth-rated films. That report, titled First Look: Trends in Top Box Office Movie Use, 1996-2004 – showed that despite a significant decline in the number of tobacco depictions in R-rated movies, no such decline was observed within youth-rated movies during the same nine year period. For this report, researchers reviewed 900 movies, including the top-100 highest-grossing movies per year from 1996 through 2004. Data gathered from these films show that tobacco is depicted in more than 70 percent of youth-rated films and nearly 90 percent of R-rated movies.
  • Also at the World Conference, The Screen Out! Guide was introduced to help parents and community groups understand the effects of smoking in movies on their kids. The guide shares research and information that parents can use to make their voices heard in their communities, and enter into a dialogue with the companies that control Hollywood and get smoking out of youth-rated films.

Mainstream U.S. films have delivered 44 billion tobacco impressions since 1999 – the year after major tobacco companies entered into a legally binding agreement with state Attorneys General not to pay for product placement. From 1999 through 2005, 76 percent of U.S. live-action movies rated PG-13 and 40 percent rated G or PG featured tobacco imagery. Over that time the balance of on-screen tobacco incidents has shifted from R-rated into youth-rated films.

For more information and the text of the study, please visit: http://www.americanlegacy.org/.

The American Legacy Foundation® is dedicated to building a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. Located in Washington, D.C., the foundation develops programs that address the health effects of tobacco use through grants, technical assistance and training, youth activism, strategic partnerships, counter-marketing and grassroots marketing campaigns, research, public relations, and outreach to populations disproportionately affected by the toll of tobacco. The foundation’s national programs include truth®, Great Start® and a Priority Populations Initiative. The American Legacy Foundation was created as a result of the November 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) reached between attorneys general from 46 states, five US territories and the tobacco industry. Visit www.americanlegacy.org.

Contact Information:
Midy Aponte 202-297-1576

© 2008 American Legacy Foundation

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