Media Beat: January 06, 2020

By David Farrell

Top Ad spenders of 2019

When you consider all spending on marketing including advertising, marketing, and promotion, Comcast led all spenders in the U.S. at over $6 billion.

Worldwide, P&G led the list of advertising and marketing spenders with over $10 billion in total marketing spending. Samsung was second, also spending over $10 billion.

The world's top 100 advertisers spent almost $300 billion on advertising.

Other ad spending highlights...
- Globally, "internet age" companies (e.g., Amazon, Uber) are spending like crazy. Of the top 100 global ad spenders, the 12 "internet age" companies increased their spending an average of 26%. The remaining 88 companies increased less than 2%.
- In the U.S., the average increase of the top 100 spenders was 4.5%, while the average increase of 11 "internet age" companies was 24%.
- With the election and Olympics coming in 2020, ad spending is projected to grow 6%. — Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian

BuzzAngle & Rolling Stone (maybe) set to take on Billboard

Back in May, Billboard reported that Rolling Stone magazine was getting into the chart business with data powered by BuzzAngle, a company acquired by RS’s parent company Penske Media in 2018. A roll-out of 5 charts launched in July, but a full-on attack on the “bible” of the music industry has yet to happen.  Maybe this is all to change. A landing page for Rolling Stone Pro has materialized on the web that promises “access to a wealth of deep coverage, research tools, and inside knowledge about the music business”. You can sign up to subscribe here.

  Meantime, Billboard has been in negotiations to regain control of its own chart data by acquiring the software and analytics that power its own long list of hit parade countdowns from the Nielsen Co. The two companies have been partners for decades, but Nielsen is selling off assets and Billboard wants better control over its destiny and one of its key income sources. Rumblings suggest that the deal will be done by the end of fiscal Q1. — Various sources

How Microsoft helped Metalworks Studios finesse its operations

Metalworks Group CEO Gil Moore operates three businesses: a career college, the Metalworks Institute of Sound & Music Production; live event management company Metalworks Production Group; and an expanded Metalworks Studios, which has hosted artists as diverse as Drake, David Bowie, Anne Murray, Guns N’Roses and Prince. The operation now employs 100 people. A suite of Microsoft products has become key in making Metalworks’ growing operations work in harmony.  —  Financial Post

Fortune’s most memorable interviews of the past decade

Since 1930, Fortune journalists have interviewed influencers from every corner of the business world. The access we get to ask questions—especially when anyone can share his or her unchecked thoughts via social media—is part of what makes our work valuable. These conversations are the heart of what we do, and they run the spectrum: Some are candid and insightful; some are contentious and pressing. As we prepare to enter into our 10th decade of reporting, we’re sharing a few of our most memorable interviews from the past 10 years. —  Rachel Schallom, Fortune

Danny Kingsbury writes his farewell from Ottawa

I’ve had 8 months to prepare for the final walk to the car (on Dec. 31). Today was a storm day so there are piles of snow covering what were open spaces. That will cause some grief next week as people get back, but not today. I was ready, until I started to well up thinking about the last 20 years. That building has always been much more than a workplace to me. It is about the people. The amazing people. It’s not easy to tally up the number of folks that have gone through. Although shredding files for 3 weeks gave me an insight I’d forgotten. Not saying I shredded a lot, but we may need a new machine. It wasn’t sounding great when I finished my last few files. It’s crazy how obsolete paper has become. (See phone messages above) Now we save as a PDF and you’re good to go. —   Rogers National Format Director waves goodbye

What it costs to live like the richest people in the world

It’s pricey out there—particularly if you’re looking to replace the grand piano in your jet. Our Cost of Living Extremely Well Index (CLEWI) climbed 3.4% this past year, more than a point above its 2018 increase. It rose nearly twice as much as the Consumer Price Index, which was up 1.7%. Since we started tracking this basket of luxe goods and services in 1982, though, it has gone up every year, by an average of 5%. Historically speaking, then, this year’s increase doesn’t look so bad after all—and the average net worth of Forbes 400 members has shot up 3,112% since the early Reagan years. They can afford the Steinway. —   Forbes’ Andrea Murphy breaks down the cost of toys, fashion, food and travel the one-percenters pay to live the life today.

Think you’re anonymous online? Think again!

Just when you thought we had hit rock bottom on all the ways the Internet could snoop on us — no. We’ve sunk even lower.

There’s a tactic spreading across the Web named after treatment usually reserved for criminals: fingerprinting. At least a third of the 500 sites Americans visit most often use hidden code to run an identity check on your computer or phone. Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Washington Post

More Cambridge Analytica political dynamite

More than 100,000 documents relating to work in 68 countries that will lay bare the global infrastructure of an operation used to manipulate voters on “an industrial scale” are set to be released over the next months.

It comes as Christopher Steele, the ex-head of MI6’s Russia desk and the intelligence expert behind the so-called “Steele dossier” into Trump’s relationship with Russia, said that while the company had closed down, the failure to properly punish bad actors meant that the prospects for manipulation of the US election this year were even worse. — Carole Cadwalladr, The Guardian