Television viewers with a sour taste in their mouth from this year's election can restore their spirits by logging into Netflix and watching the least cynical political show on television: "Parks and Recreation." In particular, you want to seek out the final episodes of last season (season four), when the earnest, public-service-loving Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, runs for the City Council.

One of the hot topics in the industry today is cross-platform measurement. In this week's interview, Carol Edwards, SVP at Arbitron, discusses her company's role in this area. Edwards is deeply involved in Arbitron's new business ventures and recently spearheaded Arbitron's cross-platform initiative using its portable people meters in a project for CIMM. In this interview, Carol discusses the cross-platform project, Arbitron's portable people meters and offers a look ahead into the media landscape of the next few years.

It's been an annual autumn tradition for more than two decades now: the reporting of continued broadcast network declines that seem to come once the networks have put on proud displays of their new fall shows, only to watch so many of them hit the wall and fail to stick. And this year has been no exception.

I spent part of my week last week in the happiest place on earth: Disney in Orlando. I was not exactly in the Disney theme parks, though. I was at the annual CTAM Insights Conference. This year's conference had a compelling theme: embracing change in research approaches, methodology, marketing and even personal growth.

Last year at this time I wrote a column wondering how advertisers might react to the overt depictions of horrific situations in FX's "American Horror Story," which had just debuted on the network to robust ratings and significant critical acclaim. I also referenced the scenes of brutal shock and gory horror in AMC's "The Walking Dead," which continues to deliver more nerve-frying tension and genuine scares than anything on television. Well, with the second season premiere of "American Horror Story" having topped much of its broadcast competition among young demographic groups earlier this week, and "The Walking Dead" having broken …

Roy Sekoff has an impressive pedigree. Although he started out his career with the hope of becoming a screenwriter and director, he found his way via Michael Moore's "TV Nation" to news reportage. Roy is the founding editor of the Huffington Post and the president and co-creator of HuffPost Live, a new site from Huffington Post / AOL that offers a live stream of news and feature stories, along with real-time viewer commentary throughout the day.

I don't like eating crow any more than the next guy, but I have to admit that I was off-base when I predicted that television would not play a critical role in this year's presidential election. I had observed that the ads and TV coverage of the national party conventions weren't moving the needle and didn't expect the debates to do so either. In my own defense, I did caveat that "unless one of the candidates makes a grievous error, the debates are unlikely to change many minds." What I didn't foresee is that one candidate would undergo a personality …

Sometimes you have to wonder what network executives are thinking. The latest cases in point: The decision made by the decision-makers at CBS to pick-up "Partners," a startlingly unfunny new sitcom, and the eager enthusiasm expressed by Fox executives (and quite a few critics) for "The Mindy Project," another freshman comedy that is largely laugh-free.

One of my favorite Advertising Week events is MediaPost's Future of Media Panel, which took place at NYU on Oct. 3. This year's group of panelists ranged from advertisers to agencies to content platforms to gaming companies, and each offered their opinions on where they see the media landscape over the next few years. Last week I wrote about my habit of predicting the future of media using the side-view mirror, where objects appear closer than they actually are. This week I leave it to others to look ahead.

Is Fox out to once and for all destroy the mighty "American Idol"? It certainly looks that way, though I can't imagine why the network would want to do so. After all, where would Fox have been during the last ten years without "Idol"? Would the successes of "House," "24," "The Simpsons," "Family Guy" and "Bones" have been enough to keep the network alive and well without the star-making competition powerhouse at the center of it all?