Alcohol Advertising Compliance on Cable Television January-June (Q1-Q2), 2019 Authors Flora Berklein, MPH Megha Parikh, MPH Charlotte Alger, BS Alicia Sparks, PhD, MPH Samantha Karon, BA Craig S. Ross, PhD, MBA Abt Associates Report Title Insert Date ▌1-1 Authors and Affiliations Flora Berklein, MPHa, Megha Parikh, MPHb, Charlotte Alger, BSb, Alicia Sparks, PhD, MPHc, Samantha Karon, BAc, Craig S. Ross, PhD, MBAb aBiostatistics and Epidemiology Data Analytics Center, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118 bEpidemiology Department, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, Boston, MA 02118, email: [email protected] cAbt Associates, 6130 Executive Boulevard, Rockville, MD 20852 Funding Source This report was supported by contract number 200-2019-F-05607 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the Department of Health and Human Services. Alcohol Advertising Compliance on Cable Television CONTENTS 1. Key Findings ............................................................................................................................ 1 2. Background .............................................................................................................................. 1 3. Methods .................................................................................................................................... 1 Data Sources ............................................................................................................................. 1 Reporting Periods ...................................................................................................................... 1 Measures ................................................................................................................................... 2 Methods for Creating Tables ..................................................................................................... 2 Tables 1a and 1b – Noncompliant Exposure Trends and Classification ......................... 2 Tables 2a and 2b – Brands with the Most Noncompliant Exposure ................................ 2 Tables 3a and 3b – No-Buy Programs ............................................................................ 2 Tables 4a and 4b – No-Buy Network Dayparts ............................................................... 3 4. Results ...................................................................................................................................... 3 5. Discussion .............................................................................................................................. 13 References…… ................................................................................................................................... 15 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………………..........17 List of Tables Table 1a: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 on cable TV by quarter — United States, 2017 Q3 to 2019 Q2 ........ 3 Table 1b: Percent annual change in total and noncompliant alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) on cable TV by quarter — United States, 2017 Q3 to 2019 Q2 ........ 4 Table 2a: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 for the 25 alcohol brands with the most noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2016 Q1 to 2018 Q4 ........................................................................ 5 Table 2b: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 for the 25 alcohol brands with the most noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2019 Q1 and 2019 Q2 ..................................................................... 6 Table 3a: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 on the 25 no-buy programs with the most noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2016 Q1 to 2018 Q4 ........................................................................ 8 Table 3b: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 on the 25 no-buy programs with the most noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2019 Q1 and 2019 Q2 ..................................................................... 9 Table 4a: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposures (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 on the 25 no-buy network dayparts with the most noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2016 Q1 through 2018 Q4 ..........................................11 Table 4b: Number and percentage of alcohol advertising exposure (measured in impressions) among those aged 2 to 20 on the 25 no-buy network dayparts with the largest number of noncompliant exposure on cable TV — United States, 2019 Q1 and 2019 Q2 ..........................12 i Alcohol Advertising Compliance on Cable Television 1. Key Findings Youth are exposed to alcohol ads on cable television billions of times a year. Analyses found the majority of exposures exceeding voluntary alcohol industry guidelines are from a small number of brands, programs, and network-dayparts. 2. Background Excessive alcohol consumption contributes to an average of 4,350 deaths among people under age 21 each year,1 and is associated with many other health risk behaviors, including smoking, physical fighting, and high-risk sexual activity.2-8 At least 25 longitudinal studies have found that youth exposure to alcohol advertising is associated with the initiation of alcohol consumption by youth, the amount of alcohol consumed per drinking occasion, and/or adverse health consequences.9-11 To help limit youth exposure to alcohol advertising, the alcohol industry has established voluntary guidelines for the placement of alcohol advertising on television that require ads to be placed only on programs with an underage audience (i.e., under age 21) that is less than 28.4% of the total audience, the percent of the U.S. population under age 21 as of the 2010 census.12-15 However, an analysis by Ross et al. found that between 2005 and 2012, underage youth were exposed more than 15 billion times to alcohol advertisements that aired on programs that did not comply with the alcohol industry’s placement guidelines, and that almost all of these noncompliant advertising impressions (96%) aired on cable television programs.16 In the last two quarters of 2018, youth were exposed to 7 billion alcohol advertising impressions, of which 164 million (2.3%) were noncompliant based on alcohol industry standards. Since 1999, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recommended that alcohol advertisers adopt “no- buy” lists to avoid placing alcohol advertising on programs that could violate the industry’s voluntary placement guidelines. The purpose of this report is to measure youth exposure to alcohol advertising on cable television, including exposure to all alcohol advertisements and advertisements not in compliance with alcohol industry placement guidelines. In support of FTC recommendations for using no-buy lists, we also developed no-buy lists of programs and dayparts that generated high levels of noncompliant exposure. 3. Methods Data Sources Cable TV alcohol advertising and U.S. national television audience data were sourced from Nielsen Ad Intel service (2020 © The Nielsen Company, New York, NY, data from 2016-2019 used under license, all rights reserved). The viewing audience size and age composition at the time of the advertisement plus an additional three days of digital video recorder playback (“C3” ratings) were acquired for every alcohol advertisement. The age composition of the audience was used to determine whether a program or network daypart was compliant with alcohol industry standards, which restrict advertisements to programs where at least 71.6% of viewers are adults of legal drinking age. Reporting Periods This report uses three reporting periods. The first reporting period, seen in Tables 1a and 1b, reflects the eight-quarter time period from 2017 Q3 to 2019 Q2 and is used to report general trends in compliant and noncompliant youth exposure. Within this reporting period, quarters were compared across years (e.g. 2019 Q2 was compared to 2018 Q2). 1 Alcohol Advertising Compliance on Cable Television The second reporting period, seen in Tables 2a, 3a, and 4a, consists of a 12-quarter period excluding the two most recent quarters (2019 Q1 and 2019 Q2). This time frame was selected to generate more stable lists of brands, programs, and network-dayparts that were responsible for the most noncompliant exposure, accounting for seasonal fluctuations in alcohol advertising. In this report, the 12-quarter time period covers 2016 Q1 through 2018 Q4. However, the 12-quarter list filters out smaller advertisers that may only advertise during certain seasons and newer television programs or network-dayparts that have only recently been generating high levels of noncompliant exposure. Therefore, the third reporting period, seen in Tables 2b, 3b, and 4b, analyzes noncompliant alcohol advertising for the two most recent quarters separately. The two most recent quarters covered in this report are 2019 Q1-Q2. Measures A noncompliant advertisement was