Major Advertising Study Finds BET Inundated With Fast Food Ads

First it was the beer industry inundating Hispanic youth with beer ads, now a new article on advertising written by an academic at the University of Pennsylvania, and published in this month's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, reports BET (formerly Black Entertainment Television) apparently reports an unusually high number of fast-food television ads aimed at young people. The journal has a handful of studies on the impact of television on adolescents.

Either the Associated Press summary of the article is incomplete or the "Editorial" -- which I presume has been peer-reviewed -- is problematic because of its narrow scope. I attempted to access the study, by Amy B. Jordan of the Annenberg Center at UPenn -- Exploring the Impact of Media on Children: The Challenges That Remain (Arch. Pediatr. Adolesc. Med. 2006;160:446-448), through the Hopkins online resources and also through the journal's public site and it was unavailable except to subscribers.

The AP quotes BET's Michael Lewellen and says he "questioned the study’s methods since the researchers included ads shown during prime time, 'when virtually all networks target adults'."

A spokesperson for McDonald's, which was named as one of the fast-food advertisers in the study, told the AP the study was "a bit misguided."

I hope to be able to sort out the truth. But I can already draw a number of lessons from this developing story. Among them: companies that are selling largely unhealthy foods popular with children and young adults have a unique challenge in defending their business models , advertising, and priorities not only to parents but also to the established medical community. It also raises an important issue for BET and other television networks: What responsibilities do media organizations have to their audiences? When, if ever, does the audience become more important than the ad dollars earned?

Given that McDonald's and other companies do offer some "healthy" options I would be interested to see what the new research says about the actual foods shown in the advertisements in question.

Read the Associated Press story [here] or [here].