Last year Procter & Gamble, the U.S. company leader in ad spend, moved dollars from TV to magazines, according to data just released from Kantar Media. Why the (perhaps) surprising shift? "Those numbers reflect a more targeted approach to media buying by P&G," according to marketing professor Michael McCarthy, quoted by Dan Monk.

Who will buy the iconic but struggling Variety, which publisher Reed-Elsevier recently put on the block? Lucas Shaw and Sharon Waxman ask analysts for their take, and come up with a host of potential owners and possible scenarios. Our favorite (if unlikely) guess: "someone willing to overpay, like a Russian oligarch interested in attending the Oscars."

Magazine publisher Hearst Corp. bought a 20% stake in Stylus Media, a research company that tracks consumer and trends. Hearst "saw the investment as a way to help titles like Elle, Good Housekeeping and Car and Driver offer more services to their advertisers," writes Russell Adams.

Who will win the battle of the New York tabloids today? It's a full-blown headline war, with both the New York Post and the New York Daily News referencing yesterday's weirdest New York-based story: the JetBlue pilot who freaked out during a flight. So it's "This Is Your Captain Freaking" vs. "Jet Ready to Die!" As a fearful flier, we couldn't resist this insider look at New York City journalism, which also quickly summarized the story so we didn't have to read the scary details in a real news account.

"Oy," is Steve Hall's comment after watching the trailer for "The Pitch," AMC's reality show about ad agencies competing each week for a particular piece of business, set to premiere April 30. "We certainly can state that the inner workings of an ad agency are better left inside the walls of said agencies," he writes. Check it out. The ominous music builds to a certain level of suspense -- but the folks talking in the trailer are certainly not allergic to reality show competition cliches: bragging, talking about how they want to win and how they're really competitive, duh.

What do OWN and VH-1 have in common? They're among the "4 Non-Essential TV Networks" whose failings Tim Molloy discusses in this post.  "When did the home of such witty shows as 'Pop Up Video,' 'Best Week Ever' and 'Behind the Music' start looking like an even tackier Bravo?" he asks. "When VH1 decided to de-emphasize music and cutting pop-culture commentary, and instead follow seventh-tier celebrities from their pole-dancing classes to that stupid handbag store they're starting." All is not lost, however -- Molloy suggests ways that at least some of these networks can improve their programming.

ForbesLife just joined the list of luxury magazines that are launching (or relaunching) this year "to tell the tales of billionaire bachelors, fine Parisian restaurants and the latest antiaging skin procedures," as Amy Wicks writes. This pub is being redesigned and will be sold on newsstands for the first time starting this week. Other mags betting that the rich will continue to spend money, want to look at pictures of expensive products, and read about others like them, are Time Style & Design, Bloomberg Pursuits, and Du Jour. Can they survive? Wicks provides some evidence that they can, including a …

Conde Nast just released app updates for its April issues of Conde Nast Traveler, GQ and Wired (and updated the Vogue app days ago) to adjust to the higher-resolution image display in the latest iPad. Back issues will still have lower-res images, though, which some are complaining about. "The way publishers are adjusting is bound to be controversial, as well: upping the file sizes of their digital editions by changing from .png files to .pdf," according to Talking New Media. "The change, though, will certainly lead to better looking magazines. Whether publishers and vendors can increase download times to compensate …

As part of a California lawsuit settlement, radio ratings service Arbitron agreed to change its method of counting minority audiences. Instead of using landline telephones to recruit users of its Portable People Meter -- which the suit alleged caused "stations serving blacks and Latinos [to suffer] lower ratings" -- the company will now "reach listeners by address and make other steps to represent minority groups," writes Ben Sisario.

Don Draper did good last night. The season five, two-hour premiere of "Mad Men" garnered record ratings: a 2.5 HH rating of 3.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched episode of the series, up 21% from the season four premiere. As for us, we can't stop singing the first part of that catchy French song, "Zou Bizou, Bizou" (now number 1 on iTunes) performed by Jessica Pare in what some speculate could be a star-making moment