Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 7, 1995 TAG: 9506070074
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Philip Morris Inc. agreed to stop placing cigarette ads in stadiums and arenas where they can be telecast during pro sports events. Government lawyers said the signs were designed to circumvent the 1971 ban on televised cigarette advertising.
The company denied it violated or intended to violate the ban. Still, it agreed to move ads for Marlboro and its other cigarette brands away from areas routinely televised during professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey games.
``The department believed there were obvious violations of the advertising ban, some of them flagrant,'' said Assistant Attorney General Frank W. Hunger, head of the civil division. He cited a Marlboro sign at the scorer's table in Madison Square Garden during New York Knicks basketball games.
Philip Morris was told by the Garden in advance the sign would be ``clearly visible on all N.Y. Knicks cablecasts [and] telecasts emanating from Madison Square Garden as well as on sports news programs,'' the government said in court papers. The court papers said the Garden later wrote Philip Morris that the ad had received an average of 2 minutes and 43 seconds of TV coverage during Knicks games in November 1993.
Karen Daragan, Philip Morris spokeswoman, said, ``I can't confirm we got such a letter.''
After the Garden case was resolved last April, Hunger said, ``We discovered a number of other signs at professional sports arenas which we thought had been positioned so as to obtain significant television coverage.''
During the 1993 and 1994 seasons, the government said in court papers, Philip Morris' cigarette signs appeared in televised sports coverage in 13 football stadiums, 14 baseball parks and five basketball arenas.
Alan Blum, professor of family medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said, ``At least this is a first step by Justice, but the advertising affected today is well under 1 percent of images and impressions of cigarette logos that kids are seeing in tobacco-sponsored sporting events on TV.''
Under the agreement with Philip Morris, the ads can remain in areas of the stadiums and arenas where they would get only minimal, incidental time on television.
by CNB