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'Adcohol' Ground gives way under arguments
which favour maintaining alcohol advertising
The ground has been gradually giving way under
arguments
which favour maintaining
alcohol advertsing on Irish broadcast
media services.
As part of its
preparation for the new Code of Programme
Standards, the Broadcasting
Commission of Ireland (BCI)
had suggested that research on the
effects of alcohol advertising
on
children was equivocal and, in particular, that alcohol advertising
might
actually delay the onset of alcohol consumption!
The BCI's subsequent draft General Advertising Code provoked a
strong
response from the Irish Medical Council (IMC) and from FMA
who drew the
Commission's attention to more recent
research which outlined the risks to children.
FMA also reacted
strongly to an opinion expressed by the Minister for children, Brian Lenihan in a
radio interview with Newstalk's Eamonn Keane. The minister, who
was responding to a question on alcohol advertising
appeared to put
children's needs in second place
behind Irish broadcasters' desire to maintain alcohol advertising
revenue.
The Newstalk interview
had followed the release of the State the Nation's Children
report which found alarming levels of addiction among young people.
FMA had a letter published in
the Irish
Independent and also the Irish Catholic. Another letter to the Irish
Times was not published but seems to have influenced the content of an
Irish
Times editorial which took aim at a laissez faire attitude
towards alcohol advertising.
Development
Documents --
General
Advertising Code - BCI website
General Advertising
Code [pdf] -- BCI
website
All of FMA's
submissions to BCI --
General Advertising
Code
'30 seconds of
darkness'
(Letter to Irish Independent)
Letter
to Irish Times
Irish
Times Editorial
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