July 17, 2015
The one Disney film label unnamed in Disney’s policy update is Touchstone, which it uses to release PG-13 films from DreamWorks under a seven-year distribution agreement. Along with that agreement, Disney also maintains a $250 million loan facility for DreamWorks. In effect, then, Disney and DreamWorks enjoy a deal structure very common among the major studios: the distributor-studio finances, markets and distributes a film made by a second-party producer.
Other major studios’ tobacco depiction policies also do not cover these sorts of arrangements either, giving the studios the flexibility they need to allow smoking in films by producers with which the studios have continuing, profitable relationships. All the studios have often given such producers a pass.
July 11, 2015
Although 15 months ago FDA released its proposed “deeming rule” that would give FDA authority to regulate e-cigarettes and other harmful tobacco products, the final rule has still not been issued, and these unregulated nicotine products remain on the market to addict kids and other new users, and to keep current and dual users addicted.
While the final rule will likely have little practical effect on controlling the exploding e-cigarette use, especially among kids, it does take the first tiny first step to controlling the unfettered marketing of e-cigarettes and other new tobacco products. So the e-cig industry (which includes the major cigarette companies) is worried that even the minimal restrictions that the final rule would impose would curtail the development and marketing of e-cigs, vaporizers, snus, and the next generation of heat-not-burn traditional cigarettes.
July 9, 2015
Kid-rated movies from four major studios — Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Warner Bros. — were 100 percent smokefree in the first half of 2015, a record number of companies.
Smoking was down, but not out, at the two other MPAA member studios, Fox and Sony.
Overall, 28 percent of G, PG and PG-13 films featured tobacco imagery January through June, 2015, compared to 38 percent in the same period the year before. The average number of tobacco incidents in youth-rated films dropped from 13 to 5.
In the past, companies have not sustained their smokefree performances for long, leading the CDC to observe that “individual movie company policies alone have not been efficient at minimizing smoking in movies.”
Seven of the ten kid-rated movies with smoking so far in 2015 came from independent film companies, not members of the MPAA. This further strengthens the case of the R-rating, which would apply to all movie companies.
If two-thirds of MPAA-member companies can act as if the R-rating is already in place, why not adopt the R-rating and protect kids permanently?
July 8, 2015
Mattlhew Farrelly and colleagues at RTI just published an excellent experimental study demonstrating that e-cigarette TV ads being run by blu, NJOY, and 21st Century e-cigarette companies move youth who have never used e-cigarettes toward taking them up. Here is the abstract of their paper, "A Randomized Trial of the Effect of E-cigarette TV Advertisements on Intentions to Use E-cigarettes," in American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
July 8, 2015
On June 29, 2015, The Walt Disney Company released its updated policy on smoking in youth-rated movies, promised by CEO Robert Iger at the company’s annual meeting.
At that March 12 meeting, a shareholder asked Mr. Iger if Disney would “commit to an iron-clad policy that your PG-13 and youth-rated movies never show smoking.” Mr. Iger responded:
Well, the answer to that is “yes.” I will commit to that. We are extending our policy to prohibit smoking across the board — Marvel, Lucas[film], Pixar, Disney films — except when we are depicting an historical figure who may have smoked at the time of his life.
The policy published ten weeks later by Disney represents a step forward, but is short of “iron-clad.” Importantly, after 2015, smoking will be barred from new G, PG and PG-13 films marketed under the Disney, Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar labels. This expands Disney’s 2005 smokefree pledge to cover studio units that Disney has acquired since then.
Where’s Touchstone?
But another longtime Disney film label, Touchstone, is missing from Disney’s 2015 list. And that’s noticeable.