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April 24, 2007

First-Run Smoking Presentations in U.S. Movies 1999-2006

To track smoking trends at the movies, previous analyses have studied the U.S. motion picture industry's top-grossing films with the heaviest advertising support, deepest audience penetration, and highest box office earnings. This report is unique in examining the U.S. movie industry's total output, and also in idnetifying smoking in movies, tobacco incidents, and tobacco impressions with the companies that produced and/or distributed the films - and with their parent corporations, which claim responsibility for tobacco content choices. Examining Hollywood's product line-up, before and after the public voted at the box office, sheds light on individual studios' content decisions and industry-wide production patterns amenable to policy reform. We surveyed all U.S.-produced live action films released to theaters in the eight years between December 25, 1998, and December 24, 2006, and offer three different measures of smoking in movies.

Posted by Gary Holden at April 24, 2007 5:14 PM