The best-heeled readers are high in the sky, reports Ad Age, with airline magazines attracting some of the highest household income levels in print media. Citing data compiled by Mediamark Research, United Airlines' Hemispheres readers have an average household take of $119,588 while archrival American Airlines' American Way just slips into six digit territory at $100,026. "Only a handful [print media] crack the $100,000 or more mark, such as both Dow Jones publications, Barron's ($110,562) and Wall Street Journal ($118,940), as well as The Economist ($107,024)," Ad Age says.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has introduced a bill that would require state governments to become cable-franchising authorities instead of the towns that have done it for decades, Multichannel News reports. The Texas Republican modeled it after a law in her home state that "appears designed to speed phone-company entry into local cable markets, as state governments would have 17 business days to grant valid franchise applications and could not impose market-buildout requirements on new entrants."

People magazine will publish a special newsstand issue called Celebrity Babies next month, WWD reports, with a run of one million copies focusing on new and expecting Hollywood parents. The mag came up with the idea after realizing that any cover with an infant on it generated particularly high sales. "It's not that babies are a trend, because people are always having babies, but there's just so much attention right now against it," says publisher Paul Caine. There will be 37 ad pages in the issue, with more than half from clients who have never advertised in the publication before.

Newspapers that for years "have treated innovation like a trip to the dentist," need to change their ways, writes Rachel Smolkin in the American Journalism Review. With circulations falling, costs rising and ads slumping, the ink-stained set is going to have to adapt or die. "You can give up, you can hunker down and bleed, or you can fight back," says Howard Weaver, vice president for news at McClatchy. It and some other newspaper companies are indeed fighting back, Smolkin notes, experimenting with Web sites, free commuter tabloids and publications in other languages, all to "lure additional audience (those folks …

Toyota has added exclusive sponsorship of ESPN's new "Monday Night Football" halftime show to its existing solo rights to the one during NBC's Sunday night NFL telecasts, Ad Age reports. The move is a big incursion into territory that has long been owned by Detroit, "but while General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have struggled financially, Toyota is incredibly profitable in North America, allowing the Japanese automaker to continue to invest heavily in advertising." The games have become a key platform for Toyota to launch its Tundra full-size pickup, the story adds.

Big Media is forking over some big money to help build the "Newseum," reports the Associated Press. Donations include $10 million from The New York Times Co., and $10 million from News Corp. to help offset an estimated $435 million construction tab. The new facility is set to open in fall of 2007 on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. Other benefactors include NBC Universal, Time Warner and Disney.

A former editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer tells Editor & Publisher that the paper's sale to group of local investors could be bad news. Robert Rosenthal, a veteran of more than two decades at the Inquirer, says "it is a unique situation and I don't think it is necessarily a great one for journalism. Many of [the buyers] are some of the most influential business people in Philadelphia and people who actively support politicians locally and nationally." He adds that the outcome of the buy could be "very interesting and dangerous... at times."

Some of the Democratic party's biggest donors, worried that the GOP's fundraising prowess could dampen their chances of capturing one or both houses of Congress, are considering funding outside committees to help gather cash for ad campaigns, The Hotline reports. These groups, known as 527s for the part of the tax code that regulates them, can make big differences in close races, freeing up money that candidates might spend on TV to focus on get-out-the-vote and other efforts. But according to the Fresh Start America Project's Michael Gehrke, a former aide to Sen. John Kerry, "A lot of what we …

Playboy Enterprises wants to help people avoid seeing programming they find objectionable--including its own, reports Multichannel News. The adult entertainment company is gearing up a campaign to demonstrate how easy it is to block out the racy stuff from your TV--or at least from your kids' TV. It already has a Web site--with step-by-step instructions on how to screen out content on a wide variety of media including cable and satellite TV; the Internet and even mobile phones.

The new chief of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is declining to state his opinion on whether the state-run company should accept advertising--even on its Web sites, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Mark Scott told the paper that he had "no strong view" on the potential for advertising but added he would be in favor of efforts to try and come up with independent sources of funding. He added that he believed the organization’s’ biggest challenge was "staying relevant in a digital world.”