The old certainties of Madison Avenue have always included this one: when the new-business rankings come out, the holding companies will dominate. So it is worth pausing over the first-half results from COMvergence, which found three independent agencies — Horizon Media, PMG and Tinuiti — occupying three of the top four positions in North American media billings.

Publicis Groupe led among holding companies, generating $1.3 billion in net new-business billings from January through June, nearly $370 million ahead of Omnicom, which ranked second. The French company's performance was driven by wins including Microsoft, Sanofi Rx and Nature Made, while retentions of $315 million included Reckitt.

At the agency level, Digitas, part of Publicis, took the top position with $533 million in net new-business billings, more than $80 million ahead of Horizon Media. The agency's largest identified wins were Sanofi Rx and Tiffany & Company.

Horizon ranked second with $451.7 million, driven by accounts including Discover Card, Weight Watchers and E&J Gallo Winery. PMG came third with $342.6 million, claiming Hims & Hers Health and Zoom Video Communications, while Tinuiti ranked fourth with $303.7 million from accounts including Carter's and The Farmer's Dog.

(The presence of three independents atop the agency rankings is the sort of development that would have seemed improbable a decade ago, when consolidation appeared to be the industry's only direction.)

WPP ranked third among holding companies with $313.5 million in net new-business billings — a figure that requires some context. The company recorded $1.39 billion in wins during the period, including Wendy's, SC Johnson and Jaguar Land Rover. It also lost $1.08 billion in business, which is the sort of math that keeps chief executives occupied.

The rankings, as always, measure what moves; they do not measure what stays put and continues to bill quietly.

Original story published in campaignlive.com: "Publicis leads H1 North American media rankings as Digitas takes agency top spot | Campaign US"