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Dave Teather: New York business correspondent, The Guardian

IN BRITAIN there seems little concern about the effects of advertising alcoholic spirits on TV. But the pubs close at 11pm for fear that we might turn into alcoholics should we be allowed to stay out any later.

In the US, the position is reversed. You can get a drink pretty much whenever you want, but advertising alcoholic spirits on the big TV networks remains a taboo.

Just three months after breaking ranks with broadcast rivals and agreeing to accept its first alcoholic spirits
(sorry, liquor) commercials, the network NBC has been forced to abandon the idea under intense pressure from powerful lobby groups and politicians.

Spirits' marketers in the US lifted a self-imposed ban
on TV commercials for their brands in 1996. Several cable networks and smaller local stations already accept the campaigns. But it wasn't until December last year that any of the big four national networks agreed to carry the commercials. NBC signed a multi-million dollar contract with the US division of Diageo, Guinness UDV.

The advertising that actually made it on air was hardly shocking. Alive to the controversy it was stepping into, NBC was treading cautiously. It set a rule that any advertiser must spend four months promoting socially responsible drinking before being allowed to air commercials on specific products. The Guinness UDV advertising encouraged drinkers to designate a driver before going out and ended with the line "From your friends at Smirnoff," the vodka brand.

NBC put in 19 stipulations for the product slots. The advertising could only be screened after 9pm and only in programming where at least 85% of the audience was over 21. Actors in the advertising had to be over 30 years of age - in Britain the rule for spirits is actors who are aged over 25.

But the commercials still caused an outcry, drawing criticism that the network was encouraging young people
to drink. Senate committees were threatening to hold
hearings with the aim of banning the commercials and
moving away from the system of self-regulation.

A number of public interest groups came down heavily on the network, including the American Medical Association and Mothers Against Drink Driving. In a statement announcing its U-turn, NBC said it had decided it was "inappropriate" to continue after listening to the complaints.

All new avenues of income are being explored by the networks, as they suffer the toughest advertising market
in decades and the world's major drinks companies have large budgets to spend. But there may also have been
a hard-nosed commercial reason behind the decision to turn them away.

It wasn't only the anti-drinking lobby that was applying pressure to NBC. The network was also coming under more covert pressure from the beer and wine producers who are allowed to appear on TV.

There have been reports that they were unhappy at the prospect of tougher competition from the distillers. The beer and wine makers also feared that the tougher rules on when and where spirits advertising was allowed to air could have then been imposed on what is a far freer regime for them. Add to that, the fact that there have been mutterings of an improvement in the US advertising market, which in December was looking pretty lifeless.

If things are ready to pick up, NBC may have felt the spirits market just wasn't worth the hangover.