Biz Bash reports on Oxygen's latest promotional effort for media buyers and clients -- a grooming extravaganza, complete with free hair braiding and makeup applications, for the hairstyle competition "Hair Battle Spectacular." This is just one in a series of smaller "pop-up parties" the channel will be hosting -- an example of "how the smaller cable television networks are getting more creative with their marketing efforts," writes Biz Bash.

This story discusses the trend of "emphasizing live content on digital billboards," with several cool-sounding examples, like the radio station that displays the names of songs as they're played. Then there's Domino's live feed of customer comments in Times Square -- which we also just saw highlighted in its very own TV commercial, in an excellent example of cross-media promotion.

Interesting. Seems that USA Today, whose circulation (more than half) is dependent on hotel guest readership, has been charging those guests without quite telling them, either. The cost is buried in a hotel bill, but guests can request a refund if they notice it (most don't, to the tune of an extra $82 million a year, according to Jeff Bercovici). The practice has pissed off one guest, who is suing -- Hilton Hotels, not Gannett -- "but it may be the publisher that has more to lose," writes Bercovici.

Print still rules among affluent Americans, according to the Mendelsohn Affluent Barometer, which surveys respondents making at least $100,000 in annual household income. "When asked how they read magazines, 93% said they read hard-copy print versions; in contrast, less than a third read them on computers," writes Stephen Kraus and Bob Shullman.They continue: "The same pattern is evident for newspapers, which 86% read in print, compared to the 39% who read them on computers, and 14% who read them via smartphone."

Though Comcast is probably best-positioned among all major cable operators to start a streaming video service, its strategists don't think such a move would be profitable, according to CEO Brian Roberts, speaking during a second-quarter earnings call. Ryan Lawler reports on the rest of the call -- including a gain of 50% over the previous year's second quarter.

Sirius XM reported good news on its quarterly earnings call, with increases in profits and subscriptions. It will also be able to raise monthly subscription prices now that an FCC price freeze has expired.

Time Inc. is working on creating tablet editions for all 21 of its publications by the end of the year. Among the first to get the iPad touch will be InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, and Real Simple.

Lucille Ball would have turned 100 on Saturday and "I Love Lucy" debuted 60 years this fall. Susan King's article runs down activities planned to mark the comedienne's centennial. On TV, all King notes is a 24-hour marathon of feature films starring Ball on Turner Classic Movies -- but we'd be amiss if we didn't also point you to Hallmark Channel's weekend-long festival of "I Love Lucy" episodes.

Creative consultant JC Suares provides a list of the top 10 most incredulous statements he's heard recently from "big and powerful" magazine industry folk. They range from "Cryptic headlines drive sales" to (spoiler alert!) the winner, "The web is a nuisance."

Your local newspaper may no longer be edited locally. The Hartford Courant, for example, will soon start outsourcing copyediting and design functions to its sister paper, the Chicago Tribune. In addition to the Tribune Company, Media General, Gannett and other publishers have also turned to centralized editing to cut costs as the newspaper industry continues to struggle with declining ad revenues. Robert Channick provides full details.