By Michael Felberbaum
AP Tobacco Writer
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The owner of MTV, Comedy Central and BET wants its networks to gain from tobacco companies’ mandate to spend millions of dollars on anti-smoking ads.
Viacom Inc. is asking the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to include its channels in the court-ordered ad purchase, arguing that the current plan to air primetime ads on NBC, ABC and CBS doesn’t adequately reach young adults and black viewers. Fox Broadcasting Co., owned by Twenty-First Century Fox Inc., also has asked that the ads air on its network.
The court-mandated ads result from a 2006 ruling that the nation’s largest cigarette makers concealed the dangers of smoking for decades. A judge ordered them to pay for corrective statements related to issues such as the adverse health effects of smoking, the addictiveness of smoking and nicotine and the negative health effects of secondhand smoke.
The companies involved in the case include Richmond, Va.-based Altria Group Inc., owner of the biggest U.S. tobacco company, Philip Morris USA; No. 2 cigarette maker, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., owned by Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Reynolds American Inc.; and No. 3 cigarette maker Lorillard Inc., based in Greensboro, N.C.
Along with TV ads, the tobacco companies are to publish statements in newspapers, websites and on cigarette packs.
The tobacco companies and the federal government reached an agreement earlier this month on the details of publishing those statements. The court must still approve the agreement.
The TV portion of the agreement with the Justice Department determined that the tobacco companies must air anti-smoking prime-time TV spots on CBS, ABC or NBC five times per week for one year.
In its filing late Monday, Viacom argues the proposed plan “may pervert — rather than serve” the court’s intention to remedy the industry’s past deception and “ignores the reality that much of the programming on those networks during those hours is not geared to reach youth and African American demographics.”
