Did limits on payments for tobacco placements in US movies affect how movies are made?

OBJECTIVE To compare how smoking was depicted in Hollywood movies before and after an intervention limiting paid product placement for cigarette brands. DESIGN Correlational analysis. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS Top box office hits released in the USA primarily between 1988 and 2011 (n=2134). INTERVENTION The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), implemented in 1998. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES This study analyses trends for whether or not movies depicted smoking, and among movies with smoking, counts for character smoking scenes and average smoking scene duration. RESULTS There was no detectable trend for any measure prior to the MSA. In 1999, 79% of movies contained smoking, and movies with smoking contained 8 scenes of character smoking, with the average duration of a character smoking scene being 81 s. After the MSA, there were significant negative post-MSA changes (p<0.05) for linear trends in proportion of movies with any smoking (which declined to 41% by 2011) and, in movies with smoking, counts of character smoking scenes (which declined to 4 by 2011). Between 1999 and 2000, there was an immediate and dramatic drop in average length of a character smoking scene, which decreased to 19 s, and remained there for the duration of the study. The probability that the drop of -62.5 (95% CI -55.1 to -70.0) seconds was due to chance was p<10-16. CONCLUSIONS This study's correlational data suggest that restricting payments for tobacco product placement coincided with profound changes in the duration of smoking depictions in movies.