FTC Critical of Marketing for New Snoop Dogg Album

On his album “Tha Last Meal,” Long Beach native Snoop Dogg raps about “living the fast life” in lyrics so packed with profanity that the edited version is all but unintelligible.

Among topics tackled by the multi-platinum-selling artist, who broke through in the early ‘90s singing about driving around in his car and “sipping on gin and juice,” are drugs, drug smuggling, sex, racism, drinking, gangs and punching women.

In a report released Tuesday on the marketing of mature material to children, the Federal Trade Commission cites Snoop as an artist who shouldn’t be advertised to kids.

On record store shelves, “Tha Last Meal” carries a “parental advisory” sticker warning parents of the rough lyrics inside. But on television, advertising for the album was readily available to viewers under age 18, the report said.

The agency found a commercial for “Tha Last Meal” on BET’s “Top 10 Live,” which airs weekdays at 6 p.m. and draws 41% of its audience--or 177,000 viewers--from the under-18 set. The album recently peaked at No. 4 on the pop chart.

The FTC contends that programs with “substantial” teenage audiences are inappropriate for material acknowledged by the record labels as needing a parental warning.

The Recording Industry Assn. of America first instituted the parental advisories in 1985 in response to a campaign to clean up popular music lyrics by Tipper Gore, the wife of former Vice President Al Gore.

Snoop’s “Pleezbaleevit” also made the list of albums that take parental advisory stickers. It too was advertised during a period of seven weeks in December and January when federal officials monitored television programming popular with teens.

The commercial for “Pleezbaleevit” aired on MTV’s “Jackass,” which has an audience of 426,000 viewers--or 35%--younger than 18.

Both programs would have been considered acceptable under the industry guidelines that were proposed last year, then withdrawn after record company executives balked. Those guidelines considered programming and magazines to be unacceptable places to advertise adult material if the audience was more than 50% minors.

Bryan Turner, chief executive of Priority Records, which releases albums by Snoop Dogg, noted that he issues edited “clean” versions of the records for consumers who object to profanity. He said the company advertised “Tha Last Meal” on youth-oriented MTV and BET cable shows because “that’s the market that’s going to buy the record.”

Turner said such cable outlets and youth-oriented radio stations “are actively pursuing us as advertisers. . . . Do I think for one second that kids aren’t watching these shows? No. But I also know there’s a parental advisory sticker on the record, and if the kids bring the record home, parents should pay attention.”