Washington, DC: Public service announcements (PSAs) broadcasted under the auspices of the White House’s $2 billion “National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign” must identify the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) as a paid sponsor of the programming, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled on Thursday. The ruling rejected an appeal from the Ad Council, a not-for-profit organization that produces and evaluates public service campaigns, to exempt the ONDCP from federal laws requiring sponsors of on-air content to be clearly identified. The NORML Foundation and the Media Access Project had filed comments opposing the Ad Council’s request.
“This decision affirms that the Drug Czar’s office must abide by the same federal laws as everyone else,” said NORML Director Keith Stroup. “When an entity, particularly the federal government, purchases on-air time to persuade the public audience, the public has a legal right under the law to know that they are hearing or viewing content which has been paid for, and they also have a legal right to know who has paid for it. Just because that content is sponsored by the ONDCP under the guise of fighting the ‘war on drugs’ does not waive this federal requirement.”
The FCC found unpersuasive the Ad Council’s arguments that identifying the ONDCP would somehow undermine the PSA’s credibility or jeopardize the number of media organizations willing to participate in the program. “It is not the nature of the message conveyed in the broadcast material that determines whether an identification is required, but rather whether or not a station receives valuable consideration for broadcasting it,” the FCC determined.
Earlier this year, an evaluation of the ad campaign’s PSAs by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found that audiences who most often viewed the Feds’ anti-drug ads were more likely to try drugs than non-viewers. Nevertheless, Congress opted this fall to continue funding the ad campaign – which requires participants to match dollar-for-dollar ad time purchased by the ONDCP on their networks – for an additional five years at current levels, approximately $180 million per year. Under an arrangement agreed upon by both the networks and the ONDCP, television networks may also earn “credit” with the agency if they air approved anti-drug content and themes in their programming. In these cases, the FCC ruled that the ONDCP must be identified as a sponsor of the program only if it airs after the agency has pre-approved the content for matching credit.
For more information, please contact either Keith Stroup or Paul Armentano of NORML at (202) 483-5500. Text of the decision is available online at: http://www.fcc.gov/mb/.