Madison and Wall: Saturday Summary

For the week ending September 22, 2023

There was lots of news this week, as expected, and multiple new posts from me.

I wrote about S4 Capital’s recent earnings results and outlook, negatively impacted as other agencies were – if disproportionately given its client skew - by weak spending by technology companies.    I reviewed the degree to which all agencies have a high degree of concentration from this category. Keeping on the agency beat, later in the week came potentially significant news from two of those other agencies, WPP and IPG, who announced organizational changes related to their programmatic trading businesses. 

I also published two pieces specifically relevant to television advertising, including my take on Amazon’s news that it would begin including ads by default with Prime Video next year.  While the news may be positive for Amazon, it won’t change the bigger challenges facing the industry around diminishing reach potential for advertising campaigns.  And teeing it up with some context for the broader sector, earlier in the week I wrote extensively about observations I’ve had around TV consumption over the past two decades which, if accurate, anticipate why the world of TV will evolve the way that it will in years to come.  

Finally, I provided a summary of this year’s advertising trends by quarter each of 25 line items of media.