The political media may be scrutinizing the record $4 billion in campaign funding this year, but another part of the media industry -- the business side that is benefiting from its record "quadrennial" effect -- is positively "giddy" about it, according to USA Today media columnist Michael Wolff.

Ads focusing on abortion, contraception, and Planned Parenthood have soared in the past month, according to a Think Progress report analyzing data from Kantar Media CMAG. The analysis finds that abortion-themed ads rose from just 14 races in September to more than 1,500 references in 50 races during the past week. A Think Progress analysis of the CMAG data found that conservative groups - such as Women Speak Out, Susan B. Anthony's List, CatholicVote.org, and Campaign for American Values - dropped at least $300,000 on anti-abortion ads between October 9 and October 15.

For all the millions of dollars spent on TV, digital and other forms of advertising, the 2018 Presidential campaign will come down to a door-to-door voter drive in decisive swing states, according to an analysis by The New York Times.

Ohio's major media markets may be also-rans in most national marketing campaigns, but given the state's potentially decisive role in two campaigns - President Barak Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney - they are playing a disproportionate role in political ad spending. Two of Ohio's biggest media markets, Cleveland and Columbus, rank No. 2 and No. 9, respectively, among the nation's top 10 markets in terms of ad spending, according to the Lancaster Eagle Gazette. By comparison, Cleveland-Akron ranks No. 18, and Columbus ranks 32 among Nielsen's DMAs.

The amount of Spanish-language political TV ads in the 10 largest Hispanic states is mounting, but it doesn't nearly approach the level of registered voters in those states who are Hispanic, according to a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce analysis conducted in cooperation with Kantar Media CMAG.

Of the 6,600 political advertising spots that have aired in the U.S. so far during the 2012 campaign season, a "painful proportion" have been essentially the same, according to an analysis by political ad tracker Kantar Media CMAG.

A bunch of top masthead changes just happened; here's a quick guide. At Hearst's Town & Country, Jennifer Levene Bruno, the publisher of Veranda, will become publisher, "replacing Valerie Salembier, who is leaving as publisher and chief revenue officer at the end of the year," writes WWD's Erik Maza. Then there's Conde Nast's W magazine, where Lucy Kriz will immediately take of the job of  vice president and publisher, following  "the departure of Nina Lawrence, W’s former publisher, who held the post for seven years and decamped earlier this month for The Wall Street Journal," …

In a twist on the digital-only reputation of Millennials (those 16 to 32), more members of that group (68%) chose TV network news programs as a source of election news than any other outlet, in a study sponsored by Comedy Central and TRU Insights. Cable news (picked by 56%) was actually third on the list, outranked slightly (58%) by online aggregators. What about the theory that this demo watches "The Daily Show" to stay informed on current events? Not so, according to the study: “Most say that they get facts and insights from a variety of mainstream news sources; however Millennials …

CNN's debuts a news dashboard, CNN Trends, which "aggregates stories from across the web that are hot topics on social media," and "then pairs the topic with a story on CNN.com," with up to 10 links to outside sources for each topic, writes Alex Weprin. This "may be the best example yet of a traditional TV news outlet 'linking out' to other websites," according to Weprin.

How have newspapers handled competition from the Internet?  "I think we didn’t quite understand, and still don’t really understand, how quickly things fall off the cliff," says Harvard Business Professor and author Clayton Christensen. Among his ideas on how to combat disruptive competition from new players in the market enabled by technology: "First, focus on the jobs that your customers are hiring you to do — and on new ones that you might be in a good position to do," writes  Joshua Benton. "And second, create a separate business focused on taking advantage of the disruption — and give it …