Duma votes to ban tobacco advertising

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, FEB. 10.The Russian Parliament has moved to ban tobacco advertising and to severly restrict ads on TV.

The Lower House, the State Duma has approved in first reading a Bill banning all tobacco advertising on the streets of Russian towns. Earlier smoking ads were banned on television. Deputies blamed heavy advertising on the worrying rise in smoking rate in Russia, with some 65 per cent of men and 30 per cent of women addicted to the habit.

The State Duma also gave preliminary approval to a ban on all television advertising during film screenings, religious broadcasts and educational and children's programmes. The move reflects viewers' exasperation with the all-too-pervasive advertising on private and State-owned channels. The Russian Government and T.V. channels criticised the proposed ban, warning that media outlets would either have to close down or become vulnerable to political influence. The Press Ministry said commercial breaks during nationwide broadcasts make up about 60 per cent of all T.V. advertising revenues. On regional levels, the figure jumps to 85 per cent. Even without restrictions T.V. ads are expected to generate only $300 million this year because of low advertising rates in Russia.

Ironically, avertisers said the Bill would threaten the very feature films and educational programmes it seeks to protect from commercials. ``Television channels would stop buying and producing movies if they could not run commercials during the broadcast,'' said Mr. Yury Zapol, president of the leading advertising agency Video International. However, supporters of the Bill said viewers were exasperated with all-too-pervasive advertising on television. They said the idea of reducing ads was to bring Russian broadcasting closer to the norms of the Council of Europe's Convention of Transfrontier Television, which recommends ad breaks every 45 minutes. In Russia T.V. programmes are interrupted for commercials every 10 to 15 minutes.

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Section  : International
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