Exposure of 4-year to 24-year olds to tobacco imagery on prime-time Chilean television

INTRODUCTION: The extent of the population’s exposure to tobacco imagery across all genres of regular TV programming and the contribution of each of these genres is unknown, except for UK broadcast channels. The objective of this study is to estimate the exposure of young people to tobacco imagery on Chilean prime-time television and the programme source contributing to such exposure. METHODS: Programmes aired during 3 weeks in 2019 from the 15 highest audience channels in Chile were content-analysed for the occurrence of tobacco categorised as actual use, implied use, tobacco paraphernalia, tobacco brand appearances and whether they violated Chilean smoke-free law for each 1 min interval (92 639). The exposure of young people to tobacco content was estimated using media viewership figures. RESULTS: Young people received 29, 11 and 4 million tobacco impressions of any type, explicit use and smoke-free violation, respectively, at a rate of 21.8, 8.0 and 2.1 thousand impressions per hour of TV viewing. The main sources of exposure to tobacco impressions were feature films and animated productions, which were almost entirely non-Chilean. Finally, young people were exposed to tobacco brand impressions primarily through films, effectively circumventing the advertising ban in Chile. DISCUSSION: Television programming is a source of significant youth exposure to tobacco imagery, including branding impressions. To conform to the WHO FCTC, Chile should prohibit tobacco branding in any TV programme and require strong anti-tobacco advertisements prior to any TV programme portraying tobacco.