When was smoking banned in talk shows?

Question

I just saw some videos from the '60s and '70s and they were lighting up cigar after cigar ... which brings me to the question: When did the tv authorities impose a ban of this practice? (probably it depends from country to country, so the more responses the better)

Answer 1

It's kind of a rotating puritanism... depending on the times.  Something always has to be banned it seems.  Here in the US, on commercial TV, in the 60s and 70s, s*x was the big No-No.  Smoking and drinking were perfectly fine.  Married couples on the sitcoms were always in twin beds.  A Leave it to Beaver episode was quite controversial because it actually showed a real toilet!  Women's navels were not allowed to be seen. Lou Grant kept a bottle of scotch in his desk.  Ethnic slurs were quite common on All in the Family.  Jim Rockford routinely lit up a cigarette.

Then around the 80s, it all switched.  No more booze or cigarettes or ethnic joking.  ( If we don't show it on TV, maybe it will go away in real life, too). But s*x was now OK.

That's kind of where we are now.  I can't wait to see what the next prohibitionists in the media foist upon us in the next cycle.

Answer 2

Afer cigarette advertising was banned from American television in 1970 or so, the networks no longer had a financial incentive to show people smoking. That's right, tobacco companies had them show stars smoking so that kids would think it was cool and get hooked. At the same time, there was a growing feeling that smoking was a bad influence and not very chic. So you started to see less and less of it. Johnny Carson, for example, continued to smoke for a while, but he did so during the commerical breaks -- you'd catch only glimpses of it. Knowledge of the dangers of second hand smoke made it increasingly unlikley that you'd see smoking in a non-dramatic circumstance.