NEW YORK—If you think the ubiquitous television commercials for pharmaceuticals are already too long, a new report from the Video Advertising Bureau confirms your suspicions.
According to the report, pharmaceutical companies have increased their spending on TV ads, which are, in turn, getting longer in duration following an Food and Drug Administration crackdown on deceptive advertising imposed last September.
“In September 2025, the FDA launched a crackdown on deceptive drug advertising with an initial issuance of over 65 ‘warning’ letters to pharma companies, 96% of which were targeted towards digital and social platforms. What came from that was a regulatory clarity that spurred increased investment across multiscreen TV platforms,” said Jason Wiese, executive vice president, strategic insights and measurement. “To help marketers better understand this current landscape, VAB conducted an analysis of recent TV investment and ad duration trends, with our findings detailed in the report.”
The report noted that the marketplace clarity provided by the FDA’s actions spurred significantly increased investment across multiscreen TV platforms in the six months immediately following the crackdown, with an 11% increase in pharmaceutical advertisers and a 53% year-over-year increase in total TV spend.
There has also been a noticeable shift towards longer pharma Rx ad unit durations. For instance, between first-quarter 2024 and Q1 2026, the share of pharma Rx ad units longer than 30 seconds increased from 74% to 82%. Further, the share of 60-second TV ad units in the pharma Rx category increased from 56% to 63% between August 2025 and March 2026.
In 1Q ’26, the highest share of longer-length TV ads came from pharmaceutical categories focused on serious and complex health conditions, including depression, HIV, tardive dyskinesia, bipolar disorder, cancer and diabetes.Rx brands are being more mindful of proactively adhering to advertising rules and regulations across multiscreen TV platforms as they present a fair balance between their product’s risks and benefits and include information regarding major side effects and considerations.
The full report—which includes in-depth data, charts and analysis spanning total TV and streaming, prime-time daypart, sports, news and entertainment genres, as well as pharma product categories—is available here.
