David Jernigan Quotations

We felt like it was a decision our viewers had to make - whether it was appropriate or not - for themselves.

There has been a huge amount of effort to stop underage drinking in this country in the last 10 years. It's made some impact with the boys. We are not getting anywhere with the girls.

Underage drinking costs the United States more than $62 billion each year. At this crucial time when research shows that girls are binge drinking with alarming regularity, more must be done to reduce youth access to alcohol, and the appeal of alcohol to our youth.

At the end of the day we know how to reduce and prevent underage drinking. What is lacking is the will to put what we know to work on behalf of our youth.

People expect teenage boys to drink. They have not historically expected girls to. Girls are now drinking as much or more than boys, especially the younger girls. They are drinking liquor. The boys are still drinking beer.

The more alcohol advertising kids are exposed to, the more likely they are to drink, and drink heavily. We have stronger and stronger research showing there is a link to advertising.

This change would leave 79 percent of television programming available for alcohol advertising and would reduce youth exposure to alcohol advertising by 20 percent.

This is the most solid piece of research evidence to come forth to date linking exposure to alcohol advertising and increased youth drinking.

They are not only drinking more than their male peers, but they are now more likely to drink more heavily than their male peers.

If people didn't watch the show and (it would) get bad ratings, stations would drop it and that's what happened.

The industry can do a better job at protecting kids from these ads. Kids are not even a legal audience for this industry. If kids are more likely to see the ads than adults are, then the industry is wasting a lot of money. In addition, they are putting kids at higher risk than they need to be.