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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to This Day in

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Speaker 1: History Class, a show that clears the air about murky

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Speaker 1: moments in history. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the last gasp of cigarette advertising on

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Speaker 1: American TV and radio. The day was January second, one.

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Speaker 1: Beginning at midnight, cigarette companies could no longer advertise their

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Speaker 1: products on American television or radio. The nationwide ban was

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Speaker 1: enacted by the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, a congressional

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Speaker 1: bill that sought to discourage Americans from using tobacco. President

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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon signed the legislation on April first, seventy and

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Speaker 1: it went into effect on January second, the following year.

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Speaker 1: The new law was a major shake up, not only

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Speaker 1: for the tobacco industry, but for the TV and radio

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Speaker 1: stations that had long relied on its advertising dollars. In

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Speaker 1: the case of television, cigarette companies were among the first

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Speaker 1: to invest heavily in the new medium, and not just

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Speaker 1: in commercials either. From nineteen forty nine to nineteen fifty six,

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Speaker 1: Camel Cigarettes sponsored one of the country's first regularly scheduled

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Speaker 1: news broadcasts, NBC's Camel News Caravan. That fifteen minute show

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Speaker 1: was hosted by newscaster John Cameron Swayze, who always sat

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Speaker 1: at a desk with an ash tray at his side

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Speaker 1: and the Camel logo prominently displayed behind him. Tobacco companies

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Speaker 1: continued to advertise heavily on TV throughout the nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: and sixties, sponsoring everything from the nightly news to game

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Speaker 1: shows to sitcoms. Winston Cigarettes, for example, sponsored several family comedies,

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Speaker 1: including The Beverly Hillbillies and even the first animated primetime

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Speaker 1: TV series, The Flintstones. It's strange to think about now,

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Speaker 1: but Winston Cigarettes actually co sponsored the first two seasons

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Speaker 1: of that landmark cartoon, and while the characters never lit

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Speaker 1: up during the show itself, they did smoke on screen

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Speaker 1: during integrated commercials that ran at the end of each episode.

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Speaker 1: The unlikely partnership ended in nineteen sixty three after the

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Speaker 1: show runners created a child character named Pebbles for the

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Speaker 1: show's third season. But because I know you're curious, here's

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Speaker 1: one of those integrated ads featuring family man Fred Flintstone

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Speaker 1: extolling the pleasures of a Winston cigarette. Rought to you

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Speaker 1: by Winston' best selling best tasting builder cigarette Oh San

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Speaker 1: taste good like a cigarette shoot. As you can probably tell,

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Speaker 1: there were very few restrictions on TV advertising in those days,

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Speaker 1: even for a p looked is dangerous as cigarettes, But

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Speaker 1: off screen, the public's view of smoking was gradually changing.

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Speaker 1: Cigarette smoking had been linked to higher risks of cancer

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Speaker 1: and heart disease since the late nineteen thirties, and by

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen sixties all fifty states had outlawed the

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Speaker 1: sale of cigarettes to miners. Health advocates pushed for even

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Speaker 1: tighter restrictions on the sale and advertising of tobacco products,

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Speaker 1: including on television. Progress was slow at first, largely due

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Speaker 1: to the medium's financial reliance on cigarette ad sales, but

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Speaker 1: some concessions were eventually made. Beginning in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: the Federal Communications Commission the FCC required all TV stations

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Speaker 1: to broadcast one anti smoking public service announcement for every

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Speaker 1: three cigarette ads they aired. Those counterpoint commercials were aired

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Speaker 1: at no cost to the organizations producing them, and were

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Speaker 1: intended to warn viewers about the health hazards of smoking.

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Speaker 1: The p s as proved remarkably effective in that regard,

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Speaker 1: and for the first time in years, the number of

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Speaker 1: American smokers began to decline. Tobacco companies responded by suing

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Speaker 1: the FCC for violating their First Amendment rights, but the

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Speaker 1: courts stood by the commission, and the anti smoking p

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Speaker 1: s a s continued to run That ruling was a

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Speaker 1: sign of more bad days to come for cigarette companies.

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Speaker 1: Two years later, the Surgeon General released an official report

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Speaker 1: linking cigarette smoking to low birth weight. In response, Congress

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Speaker 1: passed the Cigarette Smoking Act, which required tobacco manufacturers to

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Speaker 1: put warning labels on their products for the first time.

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Speaker 1: It was a major blow to cigarette companies, but public

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Speaker 1: health advocates weren't done yet. They pushed Congress to pass

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Speaker 1: a new bill banning all cigarette advertising on both TV

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Speaker 1: and radio. The legislation stalled for about a year thanks

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Speaker 1: to intervention from the tobacco lobby and from legislators who

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Speaker 1: represented tobacco growing regions. In the end, though the cigarette

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Speaker 1: companies could tell which way the wind was blowing, public

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Speaker 1: opinion was firmly against them. But maybe an on air

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Speaker 1: ban wouldn't be so bad after all. For one thing,

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Speaker 1: it would put an end to those government mandated anti

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Speaker 1: smoking ads. Plus, if cigarette companies were banned from the airwaves.

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Speaker 1: That would free up a lot of ad money to

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Speaker 1: spend on other mediums like magazines and billboards. With those

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Speaker 1: silver linings in mind, the tobacco lobby backed down, and

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Speaker 1: the legislation sailed through Congress unopposed. Richard Nixon wasn't too

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Speaker 1: keen to sign the ban, after all, he was an

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Speaker 1: avid pipe smoker himself, reportedly burning through as many as

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Speaker 1: eight bowls of tobacco on some days. The public pressure

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Speaker 1: was too great to ignore, though, so on April first,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, Nixon made the band official. At the time,

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Speaker 1: tobacco companies were the largest product advertisers on American television,

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Speaker 1: spending more than a hundred and fifty million dollars on

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Speaker 1: TV commercials each year. That's the equivalent of well over

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Speaker 1: a billion dollars today. Broadcasters were understandably said to leave

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Speaker 1: all that revenue on the table, so as a parting

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Speaker 1: gift to both them and to the cigarette companies, the

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Speaker 1: band was allowed to take effect on January second, nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy one, instead of on January one. That extra day

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Speaker 1: gave cigarette companies one last chance to advertise on TV

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Speaker 1: during the ever popular College Bowl football games that aired

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Speaker 1: on New Year's Day. The Philip Morris Company went out

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Speaker 1: with a bang that night by buying all the commercial

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Speaker 1: air time during the first half hour of all network

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Speaker 1: talk shows. The buyout ensured that the last commercial viewers

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Speaker 1: would see before the band took effect would be for

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Speaker 1: one of its products. The company chose Virginia Slims for

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Speaker 1: that honor, a newly launched brand of cigarettes marketed explicitly

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Speaker 1: to women. For the last three years, Philip Morris had

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Speaker 1: run a successful ad campaign for the brand, capitalizing on

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Speaker 1: the women's liberation movement by connecting Virginia Slims with being

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Speaker 1: a modern, confident, independent woman. The ads insisted that, much

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Speaker 1: like voting, smoking should no longer be seen as strictly

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Speaker 1: for men. One of the campaign's ads became the last

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Speaker 1: cigarette commercial ever broadcast on American television. The one minute

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Speaker 1: spot for Virginia Slims aired at eleven fifty PM during

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Speaker 1: The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Take a listen, Womanhood

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Speaker 1: is good and always from American Virginia Slims. This is

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Speaker 1: the taste for today's woman, with rich Virginia flavor. You

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Speaker 1: like tailored slim for your Hands, for your lips, Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Slims You Got Virginia. The on air ban on cigarette

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Speaker 1: advertising went into effect just a few minutes later, at

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Speaker 1: midnight on January second, seventy one. From that point on,

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Speaker 1: the smoking industry was subject to more and more regulation,

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Speaker 1: and the places it was allowed to advertise were gradually

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Speaker 1: whittled down even further. For instance, after Nixon's band smokeless

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Speaker 1: tobacco products such as chewing tobacco were still permitted on

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Speaker 1: TV and radio. However, that ceased to be the case

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Speaker 1: in and it was a similar story for outdoor forms

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Speaker 1: of advertising, such as on benches, buses, and billboards. Those

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Speaker 1: were all banned in most states. In Some of the

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Speaker 1: strictest limitations were imposed more recently with the passage of

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Speaker 1: the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Of that

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Speaker 1: Act prohibits tobacco companies from sponsoring sports, music, and other

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Speaker 1: cultural events, and it also bars them from distributing t shirts, hats,

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Speaker 1: and other clothing items that feature their logos or products.

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Speaker 1: As a result of all those restrictions, not to mention

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Speaker 1: health warnings and high tax rates, the number of smokers

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Speaker 1: in the United States has plummeted over the last half century.

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Speaker 1: According to the c d C, the prevalence of cigarette

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Speaker 1: smoking in the US has decreased from roughly forty two

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Speaker 1: percent of the population in nineteen sixty five to just

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Speaker 1: over twelve percent in twenty two. Before we go, though,

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Speaker 1: I know what you're really wondering, how did the poor

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Speaker 1: old TV networks ever manage to survive without their biggest advertiser. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's sweet of you to worry, because the loss of

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Speaker 1: that revenue really was devastating for the big three networks NBC,

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Speaker 1: ABC and CBS. But rest assured they did find a

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Speaker 1: way forward. Remember how the last cigarette ad ever broadcast

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Speaker 1: was a one minute commercial That was actually the standard

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Speaker 1: for the era, with most affiliates offering nothing but sixty

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Speaker 1: second ads. However, once the big tobacco companies could no

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Speaker 1: longer buy airtime, there weren't enough businesses out there with

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Speaker 1: deep enough pockets to make up the difference. That forced

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Speaker 1: the networks to begin accepting thirty second ads, which were

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Speaker 1: much less expensive to produce and buy than minute long commercials.

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Speaker 1: That cheaper option attracted a whole new crop of sponsors

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Speaker 1: to network television, allowing the networks to make up their

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Speaker 1: lost cigarette revenue and then some. In that way, the

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Speaker 1: now ubiquitous thirty second ad was something of a parting

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Speaker 1: gift from big Tobacco, ensuring that while the television landscape

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Speaker 1: would be a healthy your place without it, it would

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Speaker 1: be a much more annoying one too. I'm Gabe Bluesier

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Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history

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Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. You can learn even more

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Speaker 1: about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram

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Speaker 1: at t d i HC Show. He can also rate

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Speaker 1: and review the show on Apple Podcasts, or you can

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Speaker 1: send your feedback straight to me by writing to This

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Speaker 1: Day at I heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler

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Speaker 1: Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in History class