Redbook and Kiwi are just two of several magazines that are looking into promoting themselves and the brands sold by their advertisers. The former is pairing with House Party, which will help the magazine stage 1,000 "girls only" parties in reader homes on Saturday.

Attendees, estimated at 15,000, will get gifts, samples, coupons and other merchandise from Redbook advertisers, including L'Oreal Paris, Seattle's Best and Snyder's of Hanover.

The Kiwi program amasses 14,000 mom ambassadors for regular meetings averaging 20 attendees each. Participants discuss articles on the parenting site and receive product samples, which they also discuss. Read the whole story...

NBC station group has a new president --- Valari Staab -- and among her first acts of business is renaming NBC Local Media, which is now NBC Owned Television Stations. The rebrand suggests a TV-first approach. "We are no longer referring to our stations as 'owned and operated' because while the stations are owned by NBC, they are operated by the local management team of each station. Our markets are separate and distinct," she noted in a memo to employees.

Staab is a station group vet, having come to NBC from ABC, where she ran KGO San Francisco. Her predecessor, John Wallace, debuted the "Local Media" name late in 2007 to reflect the scope of station capability. Staab said the NBC group will continue to hone its multiscreen reach. Read the whole story...

Time Warner Cable's New York customers may see a change in their bill soon, as the cabler re-calibrates usage. The company is testing technology to measure consumption-based billing for broadband Internet use, said Chief Executive Officer Glenn Britt.

Moving from a flat fee to consumption-based billing will likely allow consumers who use the Internet for just e-mail and basic searches to pay less, he said. But the service could impact companies like Netflix, where consumers use large amounts of bandwidth to stream video. Heavy Netflix users, who stream more than eight hours per month, would be most impacted, expected to pay more. Time Warner will probably charge fixed amounts for specific levels of service.

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Here's the fiction part: Leslie Knope, the character played by Amy Poehler, is writing a nonfiction book about the town of Pawnee, Ind., where she serves as deputy director of Parks and Recreation in the NBC series of that name. Here's the nonfiction part: The 240-page book, "Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America," is a work of fiction co-written by Michael Schur, the show's co-creator and executive producer.  It's set to be published in October under a licensing deal between NBCUniversal and Hyperion Books. Husna Haq, writing in the Monitor's "Chapters & Verse" blog, puts the Pawnee tome into a broader perspective of NBC's leadership in building fantasy worlds around hit shows.  Other examples cited include the  "Dunder Mifflin Inc. Scranton Newsletter" on the website of the "The Office" and such merchandise as a "Kabletown swag set" from "30 Rock," and Greendale Community College apparel from "Community." Read the whole story...

Multitaskers rejoice: you can watch TV and send instant messages thanks to an upcoming partnership between Comcast and Skype.Comcast is rolling out a trial offer to consumers later this year with a broader reach available to customers next year.

"Many cable companies have promoted digital phone call functionality and features that show caller ID information on the TV screen," said Brian Stelter of the New York Times. "But the Comcast-Skype deal is one of the first forays into video calls. For customers with Comcast's phone service, their address books could potentially be moved into the Skype-on-TV service." Read the whole story...