Your editorial “Lifting the ban on liquor spots” seriously misrepresents the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s position regarding NBC’s decision to air hard liquor commercials.
CSPI actually agrees with the Tribune that TV liquor ads are not inherently worse than ads for beer. It’s just that they’re more of a bad thing right now. Shifting drinkers–and young experimenters in particular–from beer to tequila shots is likely to make our alcohol problems worse.
The Tribune misleadingly claims that the proliferation of beer ads has “coincided with a steady and substantial decline in beer consumption by teenagers as well as adults.” In reality, the decline in beer consumption has been accompanied by a 33 percent drop in inflation-adjusted beer advertising dollars between 1986 and 2000. Following the Tribune’s logic, liquor ads on TV would help reduce liquor consumption among teens and adults. We doubt the liquor industry sees it that way.
CSPI and many other groups have asked NBC and the liquor industry to restore their longstanding voluntary ban on broadcast advertising for liquor. Fairness dictates that broadcasters rethink their seduction of young people to beer, and that liquor marketers not achieve more efficient access to our children over television.
