Programming executives at the broadcast networks next week will be locked away in conference and screening rooms, making all-important decisions about their 2012-13 schedules. The following week, they will each try their best to convince advertisers and journalists they have a roster of fresh and exciting new shows that will play well with their veteran series. What better time to remind them what they did right and wrong last year? As we hear what they have to say the week of May 14, it could be helpful to remember the many misfires noted below.

Let's give a nod this week to organizations in the advanced television space, specifically the ATVEF (the Advanced Television Enhancement Forum) and the ATSC (the Advanced Television Systems Committee). Both of these groups are actively involved in advancing compliance by helping to form and advance technical standards for industrywide use.

Of all the potential uses of return-path data, (RPD) local measurement arguably offers one of the top initial values. Recently I interviewed Pat Dineen, SVP Nielsen about his work using RPD in conjunction with Nielsen's current local panel methodologies. Pat spoke of hybridization of RPD with the Nielsen panel in all three types of local market methodologies - the People Meter Markets, the Household meter markets and the Diary measured markets. This method offers the ability to include Nielsen demographics while expanding the household sample size.

Did you hear the one about the standup comedians who decided to become Internet entrepreneurs? First it was Louis C.K. and now it's Aziz Ansari and Jim Gaffigan who are capitalizing on a new business model -- stand-up on demand -- that could theoretically alter the dynamic among performers, distributors and consumers of television comedy.

Television never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think I've seen it all, along comes a new drama series about a masseuse that features happy endings in every episode. Then another show, one that couldn't be more different and is widely regarded as one of the best in the history of the medium, offers up a similar scene of its own.

For cable operators, the return-path transfer of the data is done via the Internet. The speed by which the data transfer occurs depends on the amount of available bandwidth. The greater the bandwidth for this process, the faster the transmission. Solutions to managing bandwidth include Qip Boxes and QAM Tuners. Both are defined below.

The biggest broadcast story this season seems to have nothing to do with the fortunes of any particular network but rather with the audience erosion, especially in younger demographic groups, that so many of their shows are suffering this spring. Where have all the viewers gone? That depends on whom you ask.

Last week's column discussed the importance of bandwidth in accessing content and the challenge of apportioning enough bandwidth for speedy access while still managing costs. This week we examine the terms and definitions for bandwidth apportionment and optimization. How can cost, efficiency and customer satisfaction be balanced?

Pat Dineen, SVP Nielsen, is a member of Nielsen's Local Television Audience Measurement Product Leadership team. His responsibilities include leveraging Nielsen's technology and know-how in the local measurement sector. Pat is relatively new to Nielsen, coming from CMR, where he built large databases and used analytics so advertisers could maximize their local presence. In my interview with him, Pat talks about Nielsen and STB data measurement, local targeting and segmentation, Nielsen's Code Reader, diary measurement and data ownership, as well as offering some predictions of what's next in media measurement.

As a big fan of Fox's "New Girl," I was surprised to hear that Zooey Deschanel, the show's star, is, in some circles, considered to be a controversial figure. Huh? Who could be more anodyne than the cute and innocent star of this very funny show?