How RFK Jr. Could Blow Up TV Advertising
A pharma ban - still probably unlikely - could rock the industry at a bad time
A few housekeeping items this week:
I recently completed a report on a potential ban of pharmaceutical ads on TV with my partners at TripleLift. Below is an excerpt, and a link to the full report. Check it out.
I also talked to Simulmedia CEO Dave Morgan on my podcast this week on why such a ban - which new Health Secretary RFK Jr. has proposed - will be so tough to pull off.
I’m also working with EX.CO on a fun March Madness ad tech promotion this month. Check out the link below, and be sure to fill out a bracket.
Lastly, want to advertise in the Next in Media newsletter or podcast? Reach out to mike@shieldsstrategic.com.
Now here’s the report:
The Future of TV Advertising Under RFK
Roughly two million people in the US (or less than 1 percent of the US population) are estimated to suffer “moderate to severe Crohn’s disease,” according to the Center For Disease Control. Yet chances are, you’ve heard about it, or the many drugs in the market that promise to help alleviate this inflammatory bowel condition. You may have even questioned whether you have gone down a Google rabbit hole trying to find out whether your post-burrito indigestion is an early indicator of a bigger problem.
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now confirmed as Secretary of Health, Americans may no longer be hearing about these kinds of health issues (and the drugs that claim to help ‘fix’ them) when they sit down to watch an NFL game or an episode of NCIS. That’s because Kennedy has gone on the record to support banning such direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical ads on TV in the US.
While the merits of this potential action are being actively debated among health experts and consumer advocates—there is little debate in the media industry. Such a ban, if enacted, would rock the TV advertising business at a time of massive change and tremendous uncertainty. For starters, it would force TV networks and media giants to rethink their business models and sales priorities for the foreseeable future, while potentially opening up new opportunities for a broader set of advertisers.
Meanwhile, the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry would need to radically rethink how it markets drugs. Clearly the ramifications of a pharma TV ad ban are huge, sweeping, and will be disruptive to the industry.
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A Brief History of How we Got Here
In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration loosened regulations on pharma advertising, while laying out a new set of rules: “Draft Guidance for Industry: Consumer-Directed Broadcast Advertisements,” which outlined how drug ads could work on TV. U.S. + New Zealand The pharmaceutical industry quickly seized on the policy change, more than doubling its spending on television advertising from $310 million to $664 million between 1997 and 1998, with the total spending on DTC advertising rising from $1.3 billion in 1998 to $3.3 billion in 2005, per The National Library of Medicine.
Soon, billions were being invested to turn drugs like Cialis and Prevacid into household names, and a cottage industry of pharma advertising specialists was born. Yet, interestingly, only the US and New Zealand are benefiting from this boom, as they remain the only countries to permit direct-to-consumer pharma ads.
Sizing up the market today, pharma advertising is a monster category. Per MediaRadar, these brands doled out $7.9 billion in advertising from January through October 2024, up 2% year over year. The lion’s share of these dollars—over $5.3 billion— went to local and national TV, a 10% YoY increase, found MediaRadar.
Clearly, pharma ads are a significant driver of the TV ad business—by some estimates, they account for between 10 to 12% of total TV ad spending.
According to iSpot, prescription drug brands drove 11.6% of the total spend on national linear TV last year, during which these brands generated 414 billion TV ad impressions, or 5.78% of the total across linear and streaming. A pharmaceutical ad ban would hit TV advertising at a bad time—and would hit particular categories hard.
In 2025, the TV industry finds itself in a once-in-a generation transition towards becoming a streaming-first medium. Traditional media giants are seeing their business and valuations suffer in part because of challenges to their traditional models—driven by cord-cutting and a broad shift away from linear television—along with the increased competition from tech giants commandeering the high stakes streaming wars. Yet pharma TV advertising remains highly concentrated in traditional TV and news. Per iSpot, 44.7% of prescription drug ad spend aired during programs airing on CBS, ABC and NBC, while another 3.63% combined came from Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.
Thus, a pharma ad ban would hit TV at a very inopportune time.
“This would be pretty crippling for linear TV,” said David Campanelli, president, global investment at Horizon Media. “Younger people aren’t watching, but they aren’t the pharma audience.”
This is an acute issue for news networks and programming, an area where some brands have trouble getting access to inventory due to the preponderance of pharma advertisers, coupled with the fact that many of them run 60- or even 90-second ads, said Campanelli.
If pharma spending were to go dark overnight, “I don't see how it wouldn’t significantly depress pricing,” he said. “If that goes away, I don’t see one particular category fill the void.” It’s not a void that would be easily filled.
“It’s a really interesting dynamic,” added Kasha Cacy, chief media officer, Known. “These are brands that don’t have decade-long upfront pricing. They are paying premium CPMs. So this is probably some of the most profitable spending for the networks.”
David Lawenda, former Paramount sales executive, agreed, while adding that the ramifications of a ban wouldn’t be contained to TV ads. “Banning pharmaceutical ads on TV would have a significant ripple effect on the whole advertising ecosystem.”
Read the rest of the report here.