Welcome in, today is Tuesday, September twenty-second, and we begin with COMvergence's first-half new-business tally. Publicis Media finished the first half of twenty twenty-six on top of the global new-business table, with three point two four billion dollars in net billings, according to COMvergence. That account counts wins, losses and retentions, and credits Publicis with Adidas in Greater China, plus HP, Microsoft and Prada. Omnicom Media was close behind at three point one five billion, with Delta, IBM and Subway. WPP Media took third at two point nine eight billion, and the same reporting notes it both won and lost more business than any rival. Dentsu and Havas each finished the half negative. The number that reads through to how accounts are actually run sits lower down. Centralized group units took twenty-six percent, five billion dollars, of the nineteen point two billion in reviewed spend. WPP Media routed sixty-nine percent of its wins that way, Publicis forty-seven, Omnicom thirty-four. At agency level, PHD led globally at seven hundred fifty million, ahead of Zenith and Wavemaker. Industry reaction leans toward separating pitch-winning from client performance, with some cautioning that new-business share is not yet proof of better strategy. Also today, the fight for Coca-Cola's North American media. Following our earlier report that the account was back under review, Digiday argues Omnicom is the favorite, with Coca-Cola said to be keeping the rest of its global business at WPP, which did not pitch for North America. That read rests on scale. Omnicom's North American media billings run to thirty-five point eight billion dollars against Dentsu's ten point two, per COMvergence, buying clout for a marketer said to avoid principal media. The same piece gives Dentsu an opening through its Carat leadership and its existing Coca-Cola work in Japan and Korea, and quotes one unnamed consultant calling whatever happens next an interim step. Coca-Cola declined to comment. Some in the trade read reviews this size as repricing exercises more than genuine contests. Separately, the Omnicom and Interpublic combination has produced its first named regional structure. Campaign Brief Asia reports FP7 McCann MENA and MullenLowe MENA will come together as McCann MENA, reporting into MCN and led by Mounir Harfouche, who currently runs MullenLowe in the region. Per that account, Tarek Miknas steps down and is involved in the transition, months after FP7 McCann was named MENA Network of the Year at this year's Cannes Lions. MCN group chief executive Ghassan Harfouche said the combination gives the business greater depth across creativity, strategy and specialist capabilities, and the same reporting says core client teams will be maintained. It is the template to watch as overlapping networks are merged market by market. Reaction is thin, though some read it as local fallout from holding-company consolidation rather than a regional strategy call. Now to the courts. Digiday reports newly unsealed material in The New York Times case against OpenAI, in which publishers' lawyers say the alleged circumvention of paywalls eviscerates a fair-use defense. Per that reporting, the material does not just strengthen the publishers' legal position, it validates years of frustration over how their work has been treated. Nothing is decided, and the allegation is untested. Reaction in the trade leans toward escalating the framing. Some argue paywall circumvention shifts the exposure from a copyright dispute to computer-access and anti-circumvention liability, and a recurring read is that the unsealed material lifts settlement expectations across other training suits. For anyone negotiating content licensing, that is leverage moving before any ruling. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Richard Foster has moved to block WPP's bid to dismiss his wrongful-termination suit, MediaPost reports, arguing those are questions of fact for trial. A sealing hearing is set for October. COMvergence's India barometer puts first-half reviews there at eight hundred thirty-eight million dollars, per Storyboard18, with Wavemaker top by agency and Publicis Media top by group. Accenture Song has named Melissa Fein, previously its media lead in Australia and New Zealand, to help scale its United States media operation, Marketing Dive reports. One last headline, on the platforms side. Pinterest has launched a suite of ad tools including visual search ads, per Digiday, with its executives pitching a growing and young user base.