They Will Not Puff

In the tobacco industry's palmier days, cigarette ads highlighted big-name stars with their cigarettes smoldering and innocent-looking young women who cooed, "Blow some my way." Now the message is moving in the other direction. The tobaccomen are being told by some celebrities: "Shove off." Last week, as the TV networks signed up sponsors for the 1969-70 season, big names and small names alike opened fire on cigarettes. At least two prime-time talents, Doris Day and Lawrence Welk, have sworn off performing on programs sponsored by cigarette manufacturers. So have a number of announcers, actors and commercial "voices," who can earn as much as $100,000 from a single cigarette campaign.

The smoking-and-health issue is heating up as time draws near for Congress to modify, extend, or simply drop key parts of the 1965 cigarette-labeling act, which requires cigarette packs to bear a health warning. One provision, which bars Government agencies from imposing their own restrictions on cigarette advertising, will expire on June 30. Last month the Federal Communications Commission served notice that it will seek a total blackout of cigarette advertising on radio and TV if the provision is allowed to expire.

Possible Fade-Out. Even if the FCC does not entirely get its way, the prospect is for a long and noisy congressional battle, probably resulting in more restrictions on the promotion of cigarettes. The tobacco industry spent $225 million in radio and TV advertising last year--about 10% of network revenues--and the possibility of a forced fade-out makes broadcasters extremely unhappy.

Tobacco companies are traditionally among the first and biggest bidders for TV time, and so far most of them are being just as aggressive for next season. Reynolds Tobacco (Winston, Salem, Camel), which is the TV industry's third-largest sponsor, plans at least to equal the more than $42 million it has budgeted for broadcast advertising during the current season. Admen expect that American Tobacco (Pall Mall, Lucky Strike) will spend about the same as last year: more than $26 million. Liggett & Myers is also holding the line on TV. Some of the companies have been negotiating for "getting-out clauses" in their TV contracts just in case cigarette ads are somehow restricted, or are required to carry health warnings so strong that tobaccomen would prefer not to air them.

Counterattack. Cigarette executives are also intensifying their own anti-anti-smoking war. Just last month the Tobacco Institute petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the 1967 FCC ruling that broadcasters must give free time to commercials warning of the dangers of cigarettes. The Tobacco Institute has also opened a six-week nationwide campaign of newspaper ads reiterating the industry's defense that "there is no demonstrated causal relationship between smoking and any disease"--a claim that a spokesman for the Government's National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health describes as "typical hokum."

In addition, the Tobacco Institute is preparing a 35-page broadside presenting its case. It cites research by "eminent doctors and scientists" indicating, among other things, that smokers are "more creative than nonsmokers--more energetic, more volatile." They might be expected to be sicker, the Institute suggests, "because of the kind of people they happen to be."

Almost as if they see more trouble ahead, the cigarette makers are spending considerable money and energy to diversify. Reynolds is about to acquire McLean Industries (shipping, trucking), and it plans to drop "Tobacco" from its corporate name. The company thus follows American Tobacco, which has spread into liquor, food and other products; it announced three weeks ago that it wants to be known as American Brands Inc. That is quite a change for a company that used to brag: "Tobacco is our middle name."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.