If Houston is any indication, the "Monday Night Football" habit is a tough one to kick. And ESPN may be scoring even bigger audiences than its record-breaking numbers show. Arbitron has been testing its portable people meters in the city, which measure out-of-home viewing with results for cable-only sports broadcasts that suggest a chunk of the broadcast audience moves to where the action is--a bar or restaurant. For the Sept. 17 Cowboys-Redskins game, broadcast on NBC, out-of-home viewing in the 18-49 demo was 17.8 percent--a little above average--while about one-quarter of viewing of the next day's ESPN "Monday Night Football" …

Viacom's Sumner Redstone and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch are both sons of strong women, and have both have sparred publicly with their heirs. And both are plotting to conquer China while viewing immortality as the best succession plan. But what really unites the two is that they can do as they please--a rarity among heads of public companies these days. Redstone and Murdoch are of a line of autocratic media titans in the mold of Ted Turner, Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst. Their power comes not just from their controlling stakes in the companies they built, but from an …

The CEO of Comcast wants to see an industry debate on whether cable subscribers or just fans should absorb the cost of sports networks. "I think it's time to call for a dialogue--a serious dialogue on this subject," says Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, adding that his company would participate without pre-conditions. "There's a lot at stake and it's accelerating, and it's the moment right now," he says. The pressure to cut a deal has never been higher as the result of network launches by professional sports leagues and college associations--even the Olympic Committee is considering it. "Who pays for that …

Conde Nast, ready to roll with a test issue of Vogue Living, is working on another special extension of its Golf Digest group, called Golf Digest Index. The new mag, to be sent to 300,000 of Golf Digest's wealthiest readers this month, will come out twice in 2007. And it backs away from golf instruction and the celebrities of the sport in favor of lifestyle coverage in a bid to attract more luxury advertisers. Magazines are looking beyond their pages more and more for ways to sell ads, from spinoff titles to TV shows to coffee-table books. "We have the …

TV and print should see bigger ad allocations for the foreseeable future, reports the Sydney Morning Herald, citing an interview with Michael Birkin of Omnicom. He says that TV, newspapers and magazines will remain the best option for major companies to build brands, because the type of content needed to generate "mass impact" from the Internet and other digital options is "still not there." Birkin, who serves as the conglomerate's Asia-Pacific chief executive, signals a "continuing strengthening" of global spending in traditional media sectors on behalf of its blue-chip clients. Birkin, in a visit to Australia, said TV and print …

Corporate ownership of daily newspapers is reaching the breaking point, writes Mark Glaser at MediaShift of the turmoil at the Los Angeles Times, a unit of Tribune. The Times faces the same problem as hundreds of other newspapers. Owners and stockholders want profit growth each year, and "could care less about the communities and people who actually read and gain insight from the newspaper." He suggests that if the owners of the Los Angeles Times are impatient with stagnating profits, they should let readers take charge of the destiny of the paper, "not just as citizen journalists but as citizen …

There may not be too much life left in Life, as parent Time Warner staggers and magazine subsidiary Time Inc. embarks on the biggest downsizing in its history. The two-year anniversary of Life as a newspaper insert comes early next month, but no one is in a celebratory mood. The magazine is believed to be losing in the neighborhood of $35 million a year. In order to convince newspaper chains to take it on, Time Inc. executives had guaranteed the newspapers that the insert magazine would be published for at least two years. But with time up, rumors are swirling …

There are some things, like soccer and the metric system, that Americans just don't get--even though the rest of the world does. Telenovelas--prime-time TV soap operas that run episodes every night--are the latest example. Given that they were huge hits worldwide, News Corp. decided to launch MyNetworkTV and air English-language telenovelas with catfights and lots of sex. The shows were rolled out earlier this month, with 96 percent station coverage. So far, "MyNetworkTV is Nobody's Network," as ratings have been extremely low. But despite the poor start, News Corp. is sticking with telenovelas, according to Bob Cook, president of the …

Almost 200,000 people have paid a special fee to use The New York Times' "TimesSelect" service since it launched a year ago. The service, which gives access to all of the newspaper's columnists, archives and other features, has now drawn 198,690 users who do not subscribe to the print paper, but pay a special online fee for access. That number is up from 156,000 in January and 183,000 in June--and since the beginning of the year, the Times reports that the service has brought in about $6 million in additional revenue. Online-only paid users are 37 percent of the total …

Revenue from Internet sites, from comparison shopping to broadband shows on how to remodel your bathroom, now totals 13 percent of the E.W. Scripps Co.'s revenue--and that may rise once the effectiveness of Internet advertising can be proven. Ken Lowe, president and chief executive officer at Scripps, says "eyeballs are shifting faster than dollars." He adds that millions of consumers are now watching video on mobile devices, which forces media companies to find new platforms: "Guess what? Your DVD player is about to pass into history, too. We have more control now over what we watch and when we watch …