A recent report found that programmes on Netflix showed “much more tobacco” than on regular US television.
Netflix says it’s going to cut back on how often smoking is shown in its original shows following the findings of a recent report.
The report found that Netflix TV shows depicted more smoking imagery than regular broadcast shows, as a whole.
Truth Initiative, the group who conducted the report, found that among the series most popular with people aged between 15 and 24 years old, Netflix once again topped the list with nearly triple the number of tobacco instances (866) compared with the prior year (299).
According to BBC, Netflix have said that smoking in programmes aimed at younger people will only be allowed for “reasons of historical or factual accuracy”.
In other shows it will only be shown if “it’s essential to the creative vision of the artist or character-defining”.
It added: “We also recognise that smoking is harmful and when portrayed positively on screen can adversely influence young people.”
Stranger Things, Orange Is the New Black and Modern Family were among the series named in the report that show a heavy amount of scenes with characters smoking.
The report also found that in all of the Netflix shows it studied – cigarettes became more common in the later series than the earlier series.
You can read the report in full here.
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