Advertising: Moving the Spirits

While tobacco advertising may be tightening up, the stiff but self-made restrictions on the advertising of whisky may be loosening. Last week one member of the National Association of Broadcasters said that it would ignore the NAB prohibition of whisky commercials. The dissenting member was none other than the prestigious radio station of the New York Times, WQXR. Soon after it pronounced that all the booze is fit to broadcast (after 10:30 p.m., anyhow) Muirhead's Scotch and Schenley bought all the available time slots, worth up to $70,000 a year.

Though WQXR has never subscribed to the NAB code, it is a member in good standing—and the only major one accepting whisky ads. About 80 nonmembers, mostly small stations, have carried commercials for Publicker Industries (Old Hickory, Inver House) since Publicker in 1961 decided to crack the silence barrier. The commercials are usually low-key, aired only at night and never on Sunday. Protests from listeners have been few.

Chief criticism has come from some broadcasters and distillery executives, who feel that freer advertising would provoke the Prohibitionists. The broadcasters, however, freely advertise beer and wine, which, when used immoderately, can be just as overpowering as whisky. Last week NAB President LeRoy Collins strongly urged WQXR to reconsider, said that its position could "break down the gates." But Brooklyn Congressman Emanuel Celler congratulated the station for "wiping away the hypocrisy."