You'll be hearing a lot about something called "Battleground" during the next week or two. Don't dismiss it as the latest big-budget bomb-drop at your local multiplex. Instead, pay close attention to it, because this awesome little production is actually a very solid entertainment property that might occupy a permanent place in media history as the first television series that did not debut on a television network.

The common currency for commercial measurement is C3, which we defined in a previous column earlier this year as the average of the performance of all commercials in a program plus three days of DVR playback. But there are other commercial measurement metrics in use by measurement companies today. Here is a sampling of some of the more common terms and definitions regarding live commercial ratings.

There has been a lot of press on the drop in Nickelodeon's ratings, but no absolute confirmation on what has caused the drop, or which networks if any have gained. MPG's Collaborative Alliance STB Data Committee was intrigued and decided to investigate. As part of last week's Collaborative Think Tank meeting run by MPG Executive Vice President Mitch Oscar, the group shared some data findings to spark an industry conversation about cause and effect.

The media has been having a field day with the news that ratings for the opening weeks of Fox's "American Idol" are down from last year. Heaven knows it hasn't been a slow entertainment news period, especially where talent shows on Fox are concerned, so I have to wonder what all the fuss is about. We're talking about a program that is in its eleventh season -- one that made its debut approximately 10 1/2 years ago. How can its ratings not be down? Isn't it bigger news that, even with its ratings in decline, "Idol" can still outperform the …

We shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that "Downton Abbey," which this season dramatizes the effect of World War I on the aristocratic Crawley family and its retainers, is as good as "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," "The Wire" or other recent great television series. It's not even in the same league as "Upstairs Downstairs," to which it is frequently compared. "Downton Abbey" is to "Upstairs Downstairs" as "Dallas" is to "Friday Night Lights." One is a serious drama and the other is a romp.

"Average is over," Thomas Friedman wrote last Wednesday in the New York Times, and it may well have been the headline of the week. In sports, politics, business, and the movies, we learned this week -- in case we didn't already know -- that there is no longer room in our world for mediocrity.

Super Bowl weekend is just seven days away -- and with it the true beginning of broadcast's midseason, heralding the arrival of a number of new scripted series that many critics believe to be collectively superior to last fall's freshman class. Specifically, I'm talking about two on NBC -- "Smash" and "Awake" -- and two on ABC -- "The River" and "GCB."

Retention of content is one aspect of engagement. But what exactly is engagement? Good question. The term has been a discussion point in the media industry for at least a decade. But even today it is not easily defined. Nonetheless that has not dissuaded us at CIMM from creating what we believe is an excellent generic definition of engagement -- whether for programming content or ads.

Michael Finn, president of Brightline, has extensive ad sales experience across platforms -- from cable to satellite to iTV. Along the way he developed an expertise in set-top-box data and its value in the sales process. In my interview with him, Michael talks about iTV, addressable advertising and the use of data to make informed advertising decisions. Michael also demonstrates the Brightline platform.

Is Andy Cohen the smartest man working in television? You may not think so, but it's hard to argue otherwise. How many other television executives can you name who host their own nightly talk show on the network that employs them -- a show on which they unapologetically promote their work, their product, and, by extension, their own careers?