Television, Alcohol Ads and Youth in 2002

Television is the primary medium for advertisers, and this also holds true for the advertisers of most leading alcoholic beverages. As shown in the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth’s April 2004 report, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, television alcohol advertising in 2002 resulted in alcoholic beverage advertising not only reaching legal-age drinkers, but also substantially exposing young people to their products, sometimes to an even greater extent per capita than adults.

Nearly all youth watch television frequently:

• Ninety-seven percent of teens said in the fall of 2003 that they had watched television in the last week, reporting an average of 9.7 hours in front of the television that week. More teens reported watching television than doing any other activity, and it took up more of their time than any of the other activities listed, including listening to music, hanging out with friends, and talking on the phone.¹

• More teens say they own television sets than backpacks, wristwatches or bicycles.²

Alcohol advertising on television—and youth exposure to it—increased in 2002:

• The total number of alcohol ads on network, local, and cable television increased by 39% from 2001 to 2002. Alcohol advertising spending on television also grew by 22% in that time. Alcohol marketers aired 289,381 product ads in 2002, at a cost of more than $990 million.³

• Driving the increases in alcohol ad spending on television from 2001 to 2002 were significant increases in distilled spirits and low-alcohol refresher⁴ television advertising, 418% and 147% increases in spending respectively, as well as an 11% increase in beer spending.⁵

• Youth ages 12-20 were more likely on a per capita basis than adults to have seen 66,218 alcohol ads in 2002, a 30% increase over 2001.⁵ These 66,218 ads that overexposed youth cost more than $118 million.^7,8

• In 2002 on a per capita basis, youth ages 12-20 saw two beer and distilled spirits ads on television for every three seen by adults, and nearly three advertisements for low-alcohol refreshers for every four seen by adults.⁹

• When asked to choose their favorite television commercial in a fall 2003 study, teens ranked ads for Budweiser as their second favorites, behind only Geico ads but ahead of Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Nike ads. Ads for Miller Lite appeared sixth on their top ten list, ranked above those for Sierra Mist, 7Up, Coca-Cola, and Verizon Wireless.¹⁰

Teens’ favorite television programs had alcohol advertising in 2002:

• All 15 of the television shows most popular with teens aged 12-17 had alcohol ads in 2002.¹¹

• Throughout 2002, alcohol companies placed 5,085 ads on these programs, which included shows such as Survivor, Fear Factor, and That ‘70s Show, at a total cost of nearly $53 million. Spending on this group of shows increased by 60% compared with 2001.¹²

• Six of the 15 shows most popular with teens—five on WB, one on Fox—had alcohol ads and were seen by disproportionately youthful audiences in 2002.¹³

The industry’s voluntary guidelines are inadequate:

• Alcohol industry self-regulation is the primary means of regulating alcohol advertising’s exposure to youth. The current alcohol industry standard, announced in September 2003, sets the maximum permissible youth audience composition for alcohol advertising at 30%. Because youth ages 12-20 are only 13.3% of the national television viewing audience, a threshold of 30% allows alcohol ads to be placed on programs where there are more than twice as many youth as in the viewing population.¹⁴

• In 2002, had the current alcohol industry threshold of 30% been in place, 34,016 of ads—11.8% of ads, costing nearly $47 million—would have exceeded it.¹⁵

• In 2003, the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine recommended that alcohol companies move toward a 15% threshold. This threshold would leave 77% of television programming still accessible to alcohol advertising while significantly reducing youth exposure to it. More than 21% of ads—61,741 ads, costing more than $103 million—would have exceeded this 15% threshold in 2002.¹⁶

¹Teenage Research Unlimited, Fall 2003, Wave 42, S84.
²Teenage Research Unlimited, Fall 2003, Wave 42, 215.
³Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002: From 2001 to 2002, Alcohol’s Adland Grew Vaster (Washington, DC: Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, 2004), 1.
⁴Most of the beverages in this category have alcohol content of between four and six percent, similar to most traditional malt beverages. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), “Notice No. 4—Flavored Malt Beverages and Related Proposals,” Federal Register (March 24, 2003): 14293.
⁵Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 4.
⁶“More likely to see” (as well as percentage measures of youth overexposure and other comparisons of adult and youth exposure to alcohol advertising in this fact sheet) is based on “gross rating points,” which measure how much an audience segment is exposed to advertising per capita. Another way of measuring advertising exposure is “gross impressions” (the total number of times all the members of a given audience are exposed to advertising). The adult population will almost always receive far more “gross impressions” than youth, because there are far more adults in the population than youth.
⁷Youth overexposure to alcohol advertising occurs when youth are over-represented in the audience viewing an alcohol ad, relative to their presence in the general population, and are thus more likely per capita than adults to see the ad. Youth 12-20 are 13.3% of the overall U.S. population two and above.
⁸Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 5.
⁹Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 9.
¹⁰Teenage Research Unlimited, Fall 2003, Wave 42, S44.
¹¹Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 7.
¹²Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 7.
¹³Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 7.
¹⁴Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 5 ,8.
¹⁵Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 1, 8.
¹⁶Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, Youth Exposure to Alcohol Ads on Television, 2002, 8-10.