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Cigarette ad ban will affect live soccer matches: TVs
Banning cigarette advertisements will hinder the airing of free sports programs, including soccer matches, which have long received sponsorship from cigarette makers, according to television stations
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anning cigarette advertisements will hinder the airing of free sports programs, including soccer matches, which have long received sponsorship from cigarette makers, according to television stations.
The ban, proposed by the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), is embedded in an article of a bill revising the 2002 Broadcasting Law, which is just one of the major bills being discussed by the House of Representatives (DPR) this year.
PT Visi Media Asia (VIVA) spokesman, Neil R. Tobing, said that cigarette makers played a key role in the free broadcasting of major sporting events, including the World Cup and British Premier League.
Television stations, he noted, had to cough up large sums of money to buy broadcasting rights for these events, which usually garnered high ratings.
VIVA, which operates television stations TVOne and ANTV, spent US$61.5 million to obtain exclusive broadcasting rights for the 2014 World Cup. The broadcaster secured a $10.8 million bank guarantee to be the official broadcaster for the aforementioned event.
'This is why we need sponsorships,' he said.
Neil added that sponsors helped television stations to not only recover the expenses connected to the purchase of the broadcasting rights but also to 'book profit margins'. This, he further said, enabled television stations to air such programs for free. 'In other countries, such events are not free-to-air and are broadcast through cable television instead, given the high costs of acquiring broadcasting rights,' he added.
He added that without sponsors, television stations might end up broadcasting these programs through paid, or cable, television to recoup expenses.
Outside of sponsorships, cigarette manufacturers actually contributed to less than 5 percent of advertising revenue, he added.
Data said that cigarette advertisements totaled Rp 2.5 trillion in 2012, up 13.6 percent from the previous year.
PT Surya Citra Televisi (SCTV) spokesperson Hardijanto Soeroso added that television stations had adhered to previous rules regarding advertisements from cigarette makers. 'We air these advertisements at night,' he said. Arya Sinulingga, the spokesman for PT Media Nusantara Citra (MNCN), added that television stations also refrained from showing people smoking cigarettes.
'Thus, television stations have not violated the existing guidelines,' he noted. MNCN operates multiple free-to-air television stations, including Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia (RCTI) and Global TV. 'This is why KPI should refer to the existing rules,' he added.
