Sorting out the Internet may be all the rage, but the pharmaceutical industry continues to spend significant dollars advertising its wares through assorted conventional media. To be specific, drugmakers doled out nearly $3.1 billion during the first nine months of this year, a 3 percent increase from $2.95 million during the same period a year earlier, according to Nielsen.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the recent spending was on television ads, which amounted to $1.93 billion, or 63 percent of all spending. Moreover, television ad spending rose 2 percent. Not a huge gain, but clearly an indication that television is believed to remain effective in reaching certain demographics (turn on daytime television talk shows or evening news programs for a few examples).

Meanwhile, ad spending on magazines rose considerably - up 8.7 percent year-over-year to nearly $926 million and accounted for 30.4 percent of all ad spending on prescription drugs. By comparison, newspaper advertising fell 2.4 percent to $163.5 million and accounted for 5.3 percent of spending. Neilsen, however only captured traditional media ads, not mobile apps.

A significant shift occurred in radio, though, where total spending fell nearly 36 percent, to $22.6 million, which amounted to less than 1 percent of total ad spending. And no, Nielsen has not yet tabulated spending on the Internet. We will offer the rundown when the market research firm updates its methodology for tracking this category.

For those curious about spending on brands, the Lipitor cholesterol pill was, again, the leader. Pfizer spent more than $170 million through the first nine months of 2011, although that was down 8.7 percent from the same period a year earlier. Most likely, Pfizer will continue promoting Lipitor for the short term to bolster sales amid the deals made with health plans (see this and this).

Eli Lilly was another big spender - more than $112 million was spent to promote the pill for treating pain, up from zero last year, although about $84 million was spent to market Cymbalta for depression, down from $130.5 million during the first nine months of 2010. And its Cialis impotence pill was again the third most heavily advertised brand - $105 million in the nine-month period this year compared with nearly $134 million in 2010.