New Fight Erupts Over Rules to Keep Booze Ads From Teens

A new Johns Hopkins report chastises alcohol advertisers for failing to keep booze ads away from teens, even though the study's results show the industry making some progress in living up to its self-imposed standards.

It follows closely another university report that found a decline in youth binge drinking. Industry rules prohibit alcohol ads on TV shows where more than 30% of the audience is below the legal drinking age. Last year, 23,718 ads -- or about 7.5% of all alcohol ads -- failed to meet the standard, down from 8.6% in 2008, according to the study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Yet the center points to other data that it says show an increase in alcohol marketing exposure to teens. The report -- which examined the nearly 2.7 million alcohol TV ads it says were placed from 2001 to 2009 -- zeros in on people ages 12 to 20 whom the center says are most at risk of taking up alcohol as a result of ads. Of that population, 91% were exposed to alcohol TV ads in 2009, seeing an average of 366 ads, according to the study. That's up from the 90% of the age group that had exposure in 2001, who saw an average of 217 ads.