Industry spent $4.7 Billion for alcohol ads on TV alone

From 2001 to 2005, alcohol companies spent $4.7 billion -- with a B -- to place 1.4 million advertisements for alcoholic beverages on television, reports the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (website). Analysis of those advertisements shows that:

Everyone is seeing more alcohol ads on television. In the wake of a 32% increase in spending on televised alcohol ads and a 34% increase in the number of alcohol ads on television from 2001 to 2005, youth (ages 12 to 20) exposure to those ads increased by 41%, young adult (ages 21 to 34) exposure increased by 39%, and adult (age 21+) exposure increased by 48%.

Much of the growth of alcohol advertising on television is due to the rapid expansion of distilled spirits advertising on cable. Distilled spirits ads and spending on cable in 2005 were more than 23 times what they were in 2001. Spending grew from $5 million to $122 million, and the number of ads increased from 1,973 to 46,854.

Youth overexposure to alcohol advertising was most likely to occur on cable television: in 2001 60% of overexposure was on cable, while in 2005 93% of overexposure was on cable, a percentage far out of proportion to the 43% of alcohol advertising dollars spent on cable in 2005.

On three cable networks—Comedy Central, VH1 and BET—youth were consistently overexposed to alcohol advertising every year from 2001 to 2005. Full Report.