We had it first in yesterday's MediaMix-The power of State Broadcaster Associations demonstrated: Missouri Governor Matt Blunt yesterday signed legislation (in House Bill #487) which allows broadcasters to use an #800 number or Internet site to provide the required disclosure information for automotive advertising. Missouri is the only state so far to do so. The underlying bill has an emergency clause. So, this legislation became law with an effective date of 7/7.

From the bill: "The requirements of this section shall apply regardless of whether a dealer advertises by means of print, broadcast, or electronic media, or direct mail. If the advertisement is by means of a broadcast or print media, a dealer may provide the disclaimers and disclosures required under subdivision (3) of subsection 1 of this section by reference to an Internet web page or toll-free telephone number containing the information required to be disclosed."

For a complete copy of the legislation go to here.

Missouri Broadcasters Association President/CEO Don Hicks tells RBR/TVBR the signed bill presents a multiplicity of factors in play: "First off, this is really a consumer-friendly piece of legislation because the consumers were being ill-served by the previous regulations, which basically there was no way that anyone could comprehend or understand, or any way the complete disclosures could have been made in the copy of an ad in an understandable way. So this enables the consumers, particularly with automotive advertising, where there such a high percentage of people pre-shopping on the internet, they will be able to get the complete financial disclosures and have time to understand it.

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The other aspect of it, particularly with radio moving from 60 second to 30 second ads, we're seeing a significant drop in the percentage that automotive was contributing to the overall gross of our radio members. Automotive dealers really couldn't utilize radio to its best advantage simply because so much of the ad was taken up in a disclaimer."

Hicks was talking to some of his radio station members and they were telling him about this time last year that automotive was going down to the low teens as far overall gross. So he decided to do something.

Any chance this will start spreading to other states?

"I've had a number of other states who have contacted me about it and asked for details. But I have to tell you-it went through Missouri without opposition because everybody in our general assembly were kind of annoyed with the fact that the ad was being asked to fulfill to different missions, and neither one was being done. They wanted the ads uncluttered, essentially. So the members of the general assembly kind of took this personally because they all related their own personal experiences, and I listened to the debate on the floor. They all essentially said the same thing-I can't get the information I want this way. This solves this problem for me and I know it's going to solve the problem for my constituents."

How much of a role did you play in getting this fine piece of legislation passed?

"It began with the questions I asked and then how do we go about solving the problem? I just sat down and looked at our current laws. I talked to some people and I said why don't we just do this-we'll have it where we can get it disclosed on an internet site or 800 number? I got a sponsor in the Senate, who unfortunately passed away from inoperable spinal cancer the day before this bill was signed. We worked this thing through, we gave testimony. And you could tell from the tone of the questioning how they felt about it. The consumer advocates were giving me very friendly questions about it-basic questions to enable me to show how it was a consumer-friendly piece of legislation. And when that started happening, we pretty well knew we had it done."

Hear what Matthew Warnecke, VP Mgr Network & Local Radio, MediaCom, buyer for Audi and Volkswagen, and Bob Wilson, Senior Partner/Account Supervisor at JWT/St. Louis (handles Ford locally) had to say in our AdBiz section, below.