{"id":1542193,"date":"2025-06-17T14:11:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1542193"},"modified":"2025-06-17T14:11:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:11:26","slug":"tv-networks-face-advertising-apocalypse-after-trump-admin-mulls-pharma-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/tv-networks-face-advertising-apocalypse-after-trump-admin-mulls-pharma-restrictions\/1542193\/","title":{"rendered":"TV Networks Face Advertising Apocalypse After Trump Admin Mulls Pharma Restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV Networks Face Advertising Apocalypse After Trump Admin Mulls Pharma Restrictions<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Last week<\/a> independent Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME) introduced legislation that would\u00a0ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers<\/strong>\u00a0– including through\u00a0television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Today,\u00a0Bloomberg<\/em>\u00a0reports that\u00a0the Trump administration is now ‘discussing policies that would make it harder and more expensive for pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to patients.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the US is the only place, besides New Zealand, where pharma companies can directly advertise, banning pharma ads outright could make the administration vulnerable to lawsuits<\/strong>, so it\u2019s instead focusing on cutting down on the practice by adding legal and financial hurdles, according to people familiar with the plans who weren\u2019t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

The two policies the administration has focused in on would be to require greater disclosures of side effects of a drug within each ad \u2014 likely making broadcast ads much longer and prohibitively expensive<\/strong> \u2014 or removing the industry\u2019s ability to deduct direct-to-consumer advertising as a business expense for tax purposes<\/strong>, these people said.<\/em><\/p>\n

If this happens, it would mark a major victory for Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr., who says he believes Americans consume more drugs than people in other countries due to the ability of US drug companies to directly advertise to consumers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While running for president, Mr. Kennedy said he would issue an executive order removing pharmaceutical ads from television, citing overmedication and industry influence on news coverage.<\/p>\n

Advertising Apocalypse<\/h2>\n

As we noted last week, the move would mark\u00a0a sweeping shift in the U.S. advertising landscape<\/strong>, where pharmaceutical companies are among the largest spenders. Prescription drug brands<\/strong> accounted for roughly 13 percent of all ad spending<\/a> on linear television in 2025, totaling approximately $2.18 billion so far this year,\u00a0<\/strong>according to iSpot\u00a0<\/strong>data. In 2024, the industry spent $3.4 billion on traditional TV ads between January and August alone, according to ad-tracking data.<\/p>\n

Since 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration relaxed disclosure requirements for DTC ads, pharmaceutical companies have increasingly leaned on consumer advertising to drive demand. Under current rules, companies need only disclose a drug\u2019s \u201cmost important\u201d risks during commercials.<\/p>\n

The result has been a media environment saturated with pharmaceutical messaging. Drug ads made up 24.4 percent of all advertising minutes on evening news broadcasts across major networks<\/strong> \u2014 including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC \u2014 through May of this year, according iSpot. On CBS Evening News<\/em>, pharmaceutical companies appeared in more than 70 percent of commercial breaks, per Kantar Media.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 06\/17\/2025 – 10:11<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/tv-networks-face-advertising-apocalypse-after-trump-admin-mulls-pharma-restrictions<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TV Networks Face Advertising Apocalypse After Trump Admin Mulls Pharma Restrictions Last week independent Senators Bernie Sanders (VT) and Angus King (ME) introduced legislation that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1542194,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1542193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-6tc5","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2025\/06\/im-90119419_92_jpg_9228129-LUTFJC.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1542193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1542193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1542194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1542193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1542193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1542193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}