I'll admit it: I wrote the above headline without any actual evidence to support so direct a declaration. But since this is the summer of word of mouth, when buzz and tweets and water-cooler chat and social media activity suddenly seem to count more than hard numbers in determining the success of television programming in its many forms, I figure, why not?

Back in January, I wrote an article about the pending Nielsen purchase of Arbitron and how that might affect the media business should the acquisition take place. I polled several media executives from a range of companies. Only two would go on the record or would agree to be quoted by name in the article. Such is the sensitivity of this issue that continues even today.

There seems to be a consensus in polite society that "everyone" hates reality television, which, given the clear ratings to the contrary, is obviously just another variation on that old saw "I only watch PBS." This line of thinking seems to be driven by men: male critics, bloggers, cocktail party bores, husbands and boyfriends who truly do hate the reality television that their jobs, spouses and girlfriends inflict on them.

The press reported that in a letter to CBS CEO Les Moonves, Time Warner Cable boss Glenn Britt offered to make CBS available to its cable subscribers on an " la carte" basis: Customers would have to specifically request the CBS network in order for it to be added to its subscription package, and secondly, TWC would pass the cost, which would be set by CBS, directly on to its subscribers without taking an incremental fee for inclusion of the channel. By implication does this imply:

How do these things happen? Better yet, why? The U.S. premiere this week, on BBC America, of a series that will be among the most talked-about dramas of the year comes exactly one week after the announcement from Fox that it is going to produce an American version of this very same show.

Gayle Fuguitt, the new CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation, is a prize win for the organization and for the industry at large. This research titan comes from a distinguished 30+ year career at General Mills, where she ascended to officer of research and transformed the market research department to the global consumer insights department, which helped center the focus on actionable insights and analytics to drive growth.

Will real-time bidding ever come to TV?

Almost 40 years after the summer of "Jaws," shark-mania is once again permeating popular culture thanks to the low-budget, high-impact Syfy movie "Sharknado." Fueled by a record-breaking (for Syfy) number of tweets, if not by ratings, this may be the first entertainment phenomenon that owes more to the excitement it generated on Twitter than to actual viewer interest on television.

The pace of consolidation in local TV is accelerating. In the last two months alone, three major deals have been announced: Media General is acquiring New Young Broadcasting, Gannett is acquiring Belo, and Tribune is acquiring Local TV LLC. Of course, Sinclair and Nexstar have had an appetite for consolidation for the last two years and have been pretty active in their strategic pursuits. What's behind the push for this consolidation?

With all the talk about second screens and multiplatforms and the challenges ahead, it's a good time to reflect on where the television marketplace is headed. Robert Tercek of Creative Visions did just that at the recent Second Screen Summit in NYC. His Cassandra-like assessment of the state of television, called "Ten Things That Should Be Obvious But Apparently Are Not," could stir fear in the hearts of some media executives.