The news: Pharma linear TV ad spending totaled $1.25 billion in Q3, with prescription drug commercials taking the leading share of national TV ad spending for the quarter, according to iSpot.tv.

Digging into the data: Pharma accounted for 13.1% of estimated national linear TV advertising spending, followed by food and beverage (9.6%) and home and real estate (8.4%) advertisers.

• The top spending Rx drug brand was AbbVie’s Skyrizi, approved to treat psoriasis and Crohn’s disease, with $104.5 million on two TV commercials
• Novo Nordisk’s weight loss drug Wegovy was second, with $66.1 million spent in the quarter.
• AbbVie’s drug Rinvoq, approved to treat arthritis and ulcerative colitis was third, spending $60.5 million, also on two commercials.

Yes, and: In broader healthcare and pharma TV ad spending, drugmakers account for the vast majority. Over-the-counter medication brands spent an additional $207.1 million during Q3, while healthcare insurers and hospitals spent a combined $99 million on linear national TV.

Why it matters: Prescription drug advertising isn’t generally popular with consumers or lawmakers. The Trump administration recently announced plans to crackdown on direct-to-consumer (D2C) TV and online drug advertising, and sent at least 40 warning letters to pharma TV advertisers alleging false or misleading claims.

Still, pharma advertisers continue to spend on linear TV because it's effective.

• 50% of consumers who ask their doctors about medications they saw in advertising end up getting a prescription, per a KFF survey in January.
• Traditional TV audiences skew older and are key target customers for pharma. We forecast more than half (52.8%) of TV viewers will be ages 65+ this year and spend an average 4 hours and 29 minutes per day watching.

Our take: Pharma marketers are reallocating more of their budgets toward digital—especially connected TV (CTV) and social media—for more precise targeting and measurement gains. We forecast healthcare and pharma digital media ad spending will increase 13.3% YoY to reach $24.77 billion this year.

However, linear TV is still important for Big Pharma, especially for mainstream events like live sports, to drive broad awareness of common health conditions. We forecast healthcare and pharma linear TV spending to decrease by 11% this year to $5.56 billion, but we also expect linear TV’s scale, trust, and cultural relevance will keep it in the mix for the foreseeable future.