Sometimes you stumble across a fact so stunning you have to share it with readers.
While reading a story at the Brownstone Institute by my colleague Ian McNulty, I learned that 75 percent of the total advertising spend on TV is from the Pharma industry.
Like a good journalist, Ian provided his link, which is from Statista, which specializes in interesting statistics. Here’s the supporting text:
“In 2020, the pharmaceutical industry spent 4.58 billion U.S. dollars on advertising on national TV in the United States, unsurprisingly representing a big shift in spending compared to the 2019 pre-covid market. In 2020 TV ad spending of the pharma industry accounted for 75 percent of the total ad spend.”
Here, please forgive me for muttering a mild profanity.
Damn.
Like everyone who watches TV, I knew maybe 4 out of 10 commercials I saw on TV were placed by Big Pharma (maybe even half of the commercials my wife, kids and I have to sit through) … but 75 percent?
Even I didn’t think Big Pharma was that rich or had captured TV media to that extent. But that’s what Statista says.
To the calculator I went …
I immediately went to my calculator and started doing some calculations.
With simple math, I quickly learned that all companies that advertise on TV spent approximately $6.11 billion on TV commercials in 2020.
Here’s the breakdown:
Big Pharma: $4.58 billion.
Every other company in the world that advertises on TV: $1.53 billion.
Back to my calculator … This means Big Pharma, by itself, is spending 3 times as much on TV advertising as all other TV-advertising companies combined.
In the category of “TV advertising spends,” I don’t know what industry is in second place, but this industry trails Big Pharma by a wider distance than Twice a Prince trailed Secretariat in the 1973 Belmont Stakes.
And how many pharmaceutical companies can there really be? It must be only about 10 or so big companies and, by themselves, they are outspending thousands (?) of other TV-advertising companies.
This question also popped into my brain: How many TV networks are there that depend on TV advertising?
Our family cut the cord a while back, but from memory it seems like there are at least 200 or so TV channels (although our family only watched about five of them).
If there was no Big Pharma advertising, all 200 or so TV networks would be fighting over just $1.53 billion in advertising.
Wouldn’t 90 percent of these networks go out of business if there was no Big Pharma advertising sugar?
I know some networks like ESPN and Fox News (at least before it fired Tucker) generate big streams of revenue from subscriber cable fees, but there’s not many of these networks.
I used to sell advertising so I know most media companies rely on advertising revenues to stay in business.
To me, it seems like the economic bottom-line today could be expressed with this equation: “No Pharma advertising” = “No TV stations or networks.”
So Big Pharma is keeping NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Lifetime, Discovery, The History Network, Bravo, M-TV and 200 other networks in business.
And what about those commercials TV viewers see 100 times every day? Are TV commercials even necessary to sell these drugs?
At least with a car or cookie commercial, we can watch the 30-second spot and say, “Man, I wish I had that. I’m going to go get one tomorrow.”
But with some Crohn’s drug or anti-depressant, we couldn’t run out and buy the pill even if we wanted to. We’d have to get a doctor to prescribe it for us.
And, seriously, how many of us have run to our doctor and said, “Doc, I saw a great gastrointestinal commercial last night and I’ve got to try that drug right now. Can you fix me up?”
I’m sure this happens, but it cant happen that often.
That is, Big Pharma is running commercials for 99.999 percent of TV viewers who can’t even buy the dad blasted product on their own.
I guess this is what they are doing …
Which begs the question: Why are these companies spending almost $5 billion a year to reach people like you and me?
All I can come up with is that they must be trying to spread the subliminal message that there is a “pill for every ill.”
Or, besides this vital message, pharmaceutical executives must be very nice people who have a lot of Country Club and Yacht Club friends who own TV networks.
Perhaps they’re trying to share some love with their friends and make sure Americans will always be able to watch “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” on Bravo?
I know this; I’m not getting my piece of the pie …
I’m also part of the media fraternity and I know Big Pharma is not giving me any of these advertising spends.
I admit this question has occurred to me: Is it possible they’re giving all this money to these companies to make sure nobody in the media or press will ever criticize pharma products or companies? I’m just asking.
Or maybe they’re trying to hypnotize everyone so we have some mind-numbing TV content to take our minds off the fact we have so many ailments that require this many drugs.
I don’t know. All I know is I’m not getting my fair share of this massive media apple pie.
Butch Cassidy made a good point …
One of my favorite movies is “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
In the movie, The Hole-in-the-Wall Gang keeps robbing one particular railroad.
Finally, the owner had enough and hired a Super Posse to go after Butch and Sundance.
As Butch observed: “If they’d just pay me what they are spending to stop robbing their trains … I’d stop robbing their trains.”
That’s how I feel.
With every other Substack article, I attack Big Pharma. But I might stop if just one pharma company paid me a tiny fraction of what its paying the Bravo Network.
… Nah. Just kidding.
I’m going to keep going after these companies. This industry obviously has more real money than the Federal Reserve has fake money. Surely, it can take a little push-back from a podunk Substacker like myself.
I also know that until about 25 years ago, Pharma companies couldn’t advertise on TV.
So TV went from zero percent pharma advertising to 75 percent in about two decades.
I guess it will be 100 percent in a couple of years.
Of course in a couple of years, 90 percent of the country will have cut the cord.
But America will still have TV programming - thanks to the Big Benevolence of Big Pharma.
CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: An alert readers informs me that I (and my Brownstone colleague) might have misinterpreted the Statista factoid. Instead of 75 percent of all TV advertising being from Big Pharma, this should be read to mean that Big Pharma spent 75 percent of its own advertising budget on TV. I can’t change the headline with the edit function. I apologize for the mistake … still, $4.83 billion is no small chunk of change to spend on TV commercials.
If cigarettes can’t be advertised because of how bad they are for us then why are pharma drugs, the third leading killer of all Americans, on TV. It’s called paying to control the message. We know that the Biden administration payed millions of dollars to promote the death vax and is probably why no tv people will say anything bad about the product. If you don’t follow the rules of the contract you don’t get payed the money or keep getting paid the money. We need to uncover those contracts
RFK had a great statement about this advertising revenue pertaining to the on air “ journalists”... something along the lines of “ CNN pays Anderson Cooper $13 Million a year, you think he’s going to criticize or question the Pharmaceutical Industry?”
Exactly.