A study by the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth also showed that while spending by the alcohol industry for radio advertising declined by nearly 40 percent from 2001 to 2006 - more than a third of the alcohol ads that did run last year were likely to be heard by underage youth.

"The assumption that iPods and the Internet have displaced radio as a primary source of entertainment for young people is wrong," said David Jernigan, executive director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing, located at Georgetown University.

Young people ages 12 to 20 are the most likely group to be listening from 7 p.m. to midnight, said Jernigan, "and our findings show that alcohol ads are still finding their way to too many young ears."

Numerous long-term studies have found that the more young people are exposed to alcohol advertising, the more likely they are to drink.

"Yeah, I hear the beer ads," said Demitri Skordas, 17, of West Jordan. "I think it makes kids vulnerable."

In Salt Lake City, Seattle, Philadelphia, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., more than half of alcohol radio ads were placed when youth were more likely to hear them, researchers said.

And although Salt Lake City's market size was small, ranking 25th out of 28 studied, it had the highest percentage of alcohol advertising - nearly 28 percent - during programming times when minors were most likely to be listening.

"Your area has the highest percent of children in the market," said Jernigan, "so you have a higher mountain to climb in limiting the exposure to these alcohol ads."

Craig Hanson, president of Simmons Media Group, which owns seven stations in the Salt Lake metropolitan area, said its advertisers are "sensitive about doing anything that would expose their messages to nonlegal-age consumers.

"The industry has strict guidelines where alcohol ads are placed, both in time periods and on stations," he said. "If ads are outside those perimeters, it's a surprise to me."

Trade groups for beer and distilled spirits agreed in 2003 that their members would no longer place ads where the underage audience was greater than 30 percent. The study placed the Salt Lake City market at nearly 50 percent. Nationally, one in 12 alcohol radio ads were placed above that voluntary threshold last year, according to the study.

Carol Clark, spokeswoman for Anheuser-Busch, said the company buys radio ads in compliance with the 30 percent standard set in the Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code.

"Preventing underage drinking is about preventing youth access to alcohol," she added, "not about what a teen does or doesn't hear on the radio. If teens can't get alcohol, they can't drink it."

Bud Light had the most youth exposure of any brand on the radio, researchers said, with 37.5 percent of the ads placed on programming more likely to be heard by youth.

Clark, however, disputed the finding, saying "past reports have met with skepticism, and the group has been cited by the Federal Trade Commission for using flawed methodology in its research."

The group's director Jernigan said the federal agency was critical in a single footnote from a 2003 FTC report. He said he has asked the agency to strike the footnote because a government worker didn't understand the Gross Rating Point system, a standard advertising measure, the center used in its research.

Eric Hauenstein, Citadel Broadcasting Corp. general manager for Salt Lake City, refused comment on the advertising study. The company owns eight Utah stations, including KFAN and KBEE, which broadcast Jazz basketball games. And a spokesman for Clear Channel, which owns seven stations in Utah, did not return telephone calls.

Last year, President Bush signed into law the Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act requiring that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report annually on rates of youth exposure to messages about alcohol in the mass media. But so far funding as not been appropriated for an analysis.

The research group used data gathered from analyzing 340,000 ads placed on stations in 28 of the nation's largest radio markets for its study.

dawn@sltrib.com