National TV advertising revenue for the first Presidential Debate on Thursday totaled $3.7 million among ten broadcast and cable networks, according to EDO Ad EnGage.

The “First Presidential Debate: Hosted by CNN,” which allowed for two commercial breaks during the 90-minute event, witnessed heavy older-skewing pharmaceutical/prescription advertiser messaging -- at $2.0 million, with 17 airings.

Overall, there were some 138 airings of messages on networks, resulting in a total of 763.5 million impressions.

Top pharmaceutical brands included: Ozempic, Dupixent, Vyvgart, Tremfya, as well as Bristol-Myers, Prevagen, Ro, Novo Nordisk, and Iberogast.

Other major ad categories included: pet food, home security, cruise, car dealers, over-the counter pharmaceuticals, and vitamins/supplements.

Political advertising brands included Make America Great Again PAC (a political action committee), spending $150,600 on the entire night of debate programming and analysis -- 12 airings in all on CNN, Fox News Channel, Fox Business, and News Nation.

Average viewership for the exclusive “CNN Presidential Debate” program -- seen on a smaller group of networks -- was approximately 7.3 million viewers, according to AdImpact. 

This program does not account for viewership on other networks' debate coverage such as Fox News Channel and MSNBC. AdImpact says viewership for this program peaked at 10:02 pm with 10.5 million viewers. 

AdImpact says linear TV networks had 42% share of the audience; streaming platforms 41%. YouTube TV and YouTube accounted for 10% and 7%, respectively. 

Presidential debate showed the viewers watch roughly half of the last night 90 minutes TV event -- averaging 44 minutes, according to MiQ, a programmatic media company service. 

Only 28% of viewers watch the entire airing of the hour and a half debate -- with 38% of debate viewing coming from streaming/connected TV platforms, and  25% from linear TV.