Smoking in contemporary German television programming

Summary

Objective:

To study the prevalence of smoking in German television in 2005.

Methods:

Content analysis of all programmes of the four main national channels Das Erste, ZDF, RTL and Pro7 over one week between 3 pm and 12 pm. A total of 395 programmes were analysed (252 h of programming). Each programme was coded regarding whether there was one or more smoking occurrence, defined as active smoking or handling with tobacco products by a character.

Results:

Smoking was portrayed in 176 (45 %) of the programmes. Smoking occurrences were frequent in movies (77 %), and in TV magazines (69 %). Movies, films, and serials produced in Germany showed more often smoking (65 %) compared with productions from abroad (48 %; p = 0.051).

Conclusions:

Smoking is frequently portrayed in German TV.