Alcohol ad regulation could
prove troublesome

06 July 2008
By Catherine O’Mahony

The new self-regulatory codes on alcohol advertising sound comprehensive, but they could prove tricky to implement in some cases.

In general, the new rules depend heavily on establishing that media audiences are at least 75 per cent adult before alcohol advertising can be allowed. That’s fine in the world of television, but it will be difficult elsewhere.

Existing print and radio research, for instance, doesn’t measure the under-15 audience at all, so it’s hard to see how anyone can say how many children use these media. The issue is being examined at present, but it is complicated by the fact that researchers cannot, by law, interview children without parental consent. The final decision is down to a monitoring body for the new rules, chaired by Pater Cassells, which must track compliance with the new regime and which may opt to conduct its own media research.
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