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Non-Tech : Philip Morris - A Stock For Wealth Or Poverty (MO)
MO 57.74-2.1%10:54 AM EST

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To: Jim Oravetz who wrote (5944)10/31/2000 12:44:48 PM
From: Jim Oravetz  Read Replies (1) of 6439
 
Study on Teen Readership of Magazines
May Step Up Pressure on Tobacco Firms
By ERIN WHITE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

A new study on teenage readership of magazines could put increased pressure on tobacco companies already under fire for their advertising practices.

Twenty-two of 40 major magazines measured in a new survey expected to be released Tuesday have teenage readership more than 15% or in excess of two million total teen readers, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau, which conducted the study.

The numbers are significant because they could provide more precise data on a question that has triggered heated debate within the tobacco industry. Philip Morris Cos. said in June that it would pull advertising from 40 to 50 magazines with substantial numbers of young readers. These publications included such popular titles as Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated.

In addition, a group of state attorneys general has been investigating the magazine advertising of tobacco makers following a 1998 legal settlement between the industry and state governments. The new study could end up being a weapon in their investigations.

The new survey may also bring increased pressure on R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC's Brown & Williamson unit. Both have core smokers older than that of the typical Philip Morris smoker, said Gregory Connolly, director of the tobacco-control program at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. "Their brands are smoked by old people who are dying, and they're desperate to reach the youth market," Mr. Connolly said.

A spokesman for Brown & Williamson said the company will have to review Simmons's methodology before deciding whether to pull its any current advertising. If the methodology passes muster, he said, Brown & Williamson will withdraw ads from the magazines that Simmons marked as heavily geared toward teen readers. He didn't give a timetable for such a review.

A spokesman for Philip Morris said the company hadn't seen the new data yet. However, he said Philip Morris won't necessarily reinstate advertising in publications it previously dubbed too teen-heavy. Philip Morris has pledged not to advertise in publications where teens constitute more than 15% of readers, or where the total number of teens exceeds two million.

"We have no plans to change the publications in which we're running brand advertising," the spokesman noted.
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