Verizon Communications has complained that three cable companies --Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable--have rejected its ads, a move which Verizon says keeps cable consumers in the dark concerning alternative TV providers.

The name of the network game only goes so far. CW executives say its name recognition as a new network has an amazingly high 48 percent awareness level from its 18-34 target audience. What does that say? It says something--but not everything.

With TV ratings, there is always safety in numbers. Swimming in data, TV researchers can create a whirlpool ready to take you down.

The original world of reality programming--full of vapid, droll, and other characters who backstab each other--is back, and not a moment too soon.

A station or network giving up advertising time to get programming isn't a new idea.

"Hollywood spent more money marketing movies that were seen by fewer people," says Daily Variety. If you have been a veteran TV media buyer--does this remind you of anything? It should have. TV buyers have been spending more on network TV shows for years, while getting fewer viewers.

TV viewers may just want to look at comedies through one camera at a time.

Do we really need to worry about the telcos getting into TV... again? That's so 1990s.

TV advertising's upfront isn't losing its power. It's just begun to flex its muscles, depending on which side of the advertising spigot you are sitting.

The world of the Oscars has been under attack. In the last several years, The Academy Awards show has faced weakening ratings, stronger competing award shows, a declining theatrical U.S. box office business, and more independent movies, which--few could argue--are increasingly better than big-marketed Hollywood fare.