• Fox is raising the stakes for American Idol advertisers, raising 30-second spot fees to $700,000 (reportedly the largest ever for a regular primetime show).

• The New Yorker got a slap on the wrist from ASME for its all-Target issue that didn't include much (if any) notice that the retailer's illustrations were indeed advertisements. You know, because the mag's high-brow readers might've thought otherwise.

• Martha Stewart is working on a new lifestyle magazine that's already a month behind its schedule to premiere on newsstands by Spring 2006. They're testing titles with focus groups and right now it's just being referred to as "the new magazine." But no matter what, Martha's name won't be appearing on the cover.

• Despite the New York Post's alleging Viacom and Comast were working together to create new super niche cable networks, heads at both media companies are denying any such arrangement.

• After much busy talk Google is finally launching its blog search engine, which is only going to give even more undeserved authority to our likelihood. Interestingly, a Google search for "blog search engine" doesn't yet include its own site.

• Rick Kaplan's appointment of Situation Room's exec producer Bill Wolff as executive of MSNBC's primetime is being met with generally positive reviews ("There’s nothing negative about him"). Beside winning nicety awards, he can be seen chewing plenty of Nicorette, which we hope he'll share with Keith Olbermann.