Weekly Roundup – September 16th, 2025
Roundup Links
Trump’s effort to target television drug ads could have massive implications
"An effort by President Trump’s administration to curb advertising for pharmaceutical drugs on television is posing a potential marketing hurdle for some of the country’s largest drugmakers while threatening a key revenue stream for media companies.
Advertising and pharmaceutical industry experts say an executive order Trump signed this week could pose an existential threat to the business model of both drugmakers and the media companies, which raked in an estimated $5 billion in advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies in 2024.
The order instructs the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ensure “transparency and accuracy” in direct-to-consumer advertising, including requiring greater disclosures of side effects in television and other ads."
Our Take: Pharmaceutical ads account for roughly 20 to 30 percent of cable news’ ad inventory. Pharma is effectively propping up cable news outlets. Eliminating pharma ads would destabilize the entire cable news industry. Streaming does not rely on pharma ads in the same way that cable does. But would this be the death of cable? Probably not. Most people that still have cable subscriptions do so because of sports.
Rolling Stone Publisher Sues Google Over AI Summaries
"The publisher of Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter has sued Google, alleging that the AI summaries that appear atop search results are illegally using its reporting and depressing online traffic."
Our Take: We can all agree that the internet was disastrous for print news media (papers, magazines, etc.). Unfortunately, AI summaries are set to further imperil the publishing industry. Copyright law wasn’t written with AI in mind. AI was some sci-fi abstraction when traditional copyright laws were established. There is a legal gray area right now involving the copying of written material into datasets. Google and OpenAI et al have mobilized an army of lobbyists to prevent movement on drafting enforceable copyright law pertaining to AI that would limit operations in a growing field.
US, China reach 'framework deal' over TikTok
"The US and China struck a “framework” deal over TikTok, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday in Madrid during trade talks between the countries’ top officials.
US President Donald Trump said that a deal was reached “on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”
Bessent did not provide details, but said the agreement was between two “private parties.”"
Our Take: TikTok’s secret sauce is its algorithm that taps into the primal (often base) impulses of the American Psyche. Whether China would relinquish the keys to its algorithm that has hooked so many Americans, adults and children alike, remains to be seen. Americans would tune out TikTok if they weren’t served up the same sort of addictive, activating content that the brand is renowned for.
The music streaming service that just won't die
"But somehow, despite losing nearly half its audience, Pandora is generating more revenue than ever, to the tune of nearly $2.2 billion in 2024.. That’s thanks largely to its advertising business, which since 2018 has also included selling ads for third-party platforms like SoundCloud.
Still, margins in streaming ads remain roughly half of what SiriusXM earns from its legacy subscription business. That gap explains why SiriusXM has steadily shifted focus back to satellite radio. According to two former employees, executives tried several times to sell Pandora but couldn’t find a buyer. Instead, Pandora has lingered in what one describes as “maintenance mode.”
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Then again, Pandora is still playing, and many millions are still listening—including founding CEO Joe Kennedy, who actively uses the service to this day. “It is pretty wild that Pandora is still around after two decades,” Kennedy says, adding that countless other music startups weren’t as lucky. For him, the enduring power of the service lies in Pandora’s ability to find the needle in the haystack, and deliver just the right mix of music to its listeners, song after song.
“That it’s still doing that for 40 to 50 million people a month is pretty damn cool,” Kennedy says."
Our Take: Pandora’s audience of 40 to 50 million a month is massive. 2.2 Billion dollars for an internet radio company allegedly in ‘maintenance mode’ is massive. What’s the lesson here for terrestrial radio? The key to success for any medium is to become a habit. Pandora is a habitual form of media consumption for many and it takes something serious to break the habit. A habit will outlast any trend. Same goes for AM/FM bands. Try to instill new habits in audiences in addition to maintaining their core habit of tuning into your station.
