Melo made his Knicks debut a couple of weeks ago, and Jimmy Dolan's critics were silenced, at least for the moment. What's this have to do with TV, you ask? Check out the ratings, for one.

For those of us who are in the business of television, Nielsen is, for better or for worse, a large part of our daily lives. We recite their ratings as if it were some sort of gospel -- although you'd be hard-pressed to find many devout believers in the Holy Methodology these days. We're more an industry full of agnostics : we'll attend your church because it's where we were raised, but we're really not sure that we totally believe the scripture.

We know them as "MSO," "Satco" and "Telco." These are the companies who are considered the "data originators" -- those that are at the source of the Set-Top Box Data. But a new acronym has emerged to describe these types of companies as a group. These companies are now termed Multi-channel Video Programming Distributors, or MVPDs for short.

Last Wednesday's intentionally provocative John Hancock post, concerning Al-Jazeera's efforts to penetrate MSO's with their English-speaking spin-off, generated a record number of responses. The column's unofficial "sentiment tally" would have one believe that media insiders are solidly -- in fact, unanimously -- pro-Al-Jazeera English.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when agencies combined media and creative services for their clients, there was born the concept of the Whole Egg. It was the creation of Ed Ney, who at the time was president of Young & Rubicam International. Ney was driven to create a one-stop shop of specialized skills and communications services that would be seamlessly integrated for his clients.

Now more than ever, those of us who are bringing new Internet- style technologies to the TV medium need to be cognizant of its incredible power.

Jack Myers, Chairman and Media Economist for the Media Advisory Group, is one of the leading media prognosticators in the industry. His Jack Myers Media Business Report and the Survey of Advertising Executives have become industry standards and continue to help media companies serve their customer base and plan for the future.

One would think that something as ubiquitous as a Remote would have a simple definition. However it is not as simple as it would first appear. While there are several industry definitions for a Remote Control (indicting a hardware device), there are other terms related to Remotes that are data-specific.

>Reports are circulating that Al Jazeera English, the "toned down" version of Al Jazeera, has been making rounds this week among some of America's largest cable operators, including Philadelphia-based Comcast.

This just in from former TV Board columnist and well-known collaborator Mitch Oscar, who has aked us to let the TV Board community know that they're welcome to attend a special session of MPG's Collaborative Alliance, which will be held Thursday from noon to 2:30 at MPG's New York headquarters on the 12th floor of 195 Broadway in Manhattan.