New shows "The New Normal," "Girls" and comedy "Go On" have helped U.S. television produce a record number of gay, bisexual and transgender characters, gay rights group GLAAD said on Friday. The 31 regular LGBT characters on scripted shows on the five main networks this season mark the highest percentage (4.4%) in the organization's eight years of counting. GLAAD said regular LGBT characters on cable television are even higher for the 2012-13 TV season, at 35 compared to 29 last year. Gay characters are established on "Glee," "Grey's Anatomy," "True Blood" and "The Good Wife."  

Dish Network says that Gannett Broadcasting has threatened to pull its broadcast TV station signals from Dish if the satellite TV service provider doesn't block the ad-skipping technology in the digital video recorders it provides to its subscribers. Reuters reports that Dish's so-called "AutoHop" feature enables its subscribers to simply press a button an automatically bypass TV commercials when they are watching recorded TV programming in playback mode.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., decided two years ago to create a pay wall for The Times of London that could not be penetrated by Google and other "parasitic" search engines, as he called them. In effect, the paper was cut off completely from the public Internet. As one of Mr. Murdoch's newspaper managers later described that strategy: "Rupert didn't just build a pay wall; he circled it with barbed wire, dug a moat around it and put crocodiles in the moat."

Facebook has reached its billionth user, elevated from 900 million users in April. The social network released a video, created by its global agency Wieden + Kennedy that likens the brand to bridges, airplanes and the universe. Yes, the universe. The first two are things that bring people together. The last signifies the people Facebook has yet to rein in.

The touted year of the Hispanic voter may not have been fully felt in the  political advertising sector. The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce said Spanish-language advertising is a small fraction of overall spending, even in states with large Hispanic populations, such as California and Florida. The USHCC study looked at spending in 10 states (California, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Illinois, Florida, Arizona, Texas, New York and Virginia) from April through September. During that time, $358.9 million was spent on political advertising. Of that, $16.4 million or 4.5% was spent on Spanish-language advertising.Obama campaign has aimed almost 10% of …

After facing "an uneven first half of the year," Hearst Magazines' Design Group  is combining the features, market and photography departments of its three mags -- House Beautiful, Veranda and Elle Decor, according to Emma Bazilian. In the reorganization, several postions will probably be eliminated, but the pub with the highest circulation of the three, House Beautiful, will get a new editor in chief as Newell Turner, who presently holds the position, will move to the newly created spot of editor in chief of the division.

Consumer Reports is restructuring, in a move that has already eliminated one top job (vice president and editorial director Kevin McKean has left), with more layoffs expected. "The bulk of the changes at this point will hinge on forming a new centralized content group that will merge the editorial, testing and survey groups," writes TJ Raphael.

"One week does not a season make, particularly in an era when shows debut year-round and many viewers watch shows on their own damn schedules," writes Josef Adalion. "But that caveat aside, we still think there are some early lessons to be drawn from the early days of the new season." Adalion's analysis includes spelling out which shows are "doomed" (Fox's "Mob Doctor and CBS' "Partners"), and pointing out that NBC appears to be rebounding somewhat, "Fox is off to a rocky start," and "it's more important than ever to pay attention to time-shifted viewing."

In what is presumably a first in print ads, the CW's print insert in the latest Entertainment Weekly "contains a small LCD screen that features looping video and the six latest tweets from @CW_Network beneath the words, 'Follow Us Now,'" writes Lauren Indvik.  The ad, running only in 1,000 issues in New York and Los Angeles, is not the first video-print collaboration. Another video ad, this time for Pepsi, appeared three years ago in EW, and Marie Claire in the U.K. has a Dolce & Gabbana video ad this month.

Meredith named James Van Fleteren creative director of its Eating Well Media Group. Previously heading his design firm, The Van Fleteren Group, he takes on the post immediately.