So much for broadcast network studio synergy. Now it seems broadcast networks really have to look for the best shows - whether or not they are made by their respective sister Hollywood studios production companies. For this fall's season, NBC has only taken 33 percent of its new series from its NBC Universal Television Studios - otherwise known somewhat comically as NUTS. Considering how far NBC sank this season they would be indeed nuts not the take the best programming available. Of course, the reality is that NBC has been doing this for years.

For the last several days during the upfront meetings, it's been a question on everyone's lips and will be buzzed again today as Fox becomes the last network to deliver its upfront presentation: What happened to all the reality shows?

Cheer just a little for ABC, the comeback kid, this upfront season. But hold your applause until just before next November sweep. That's when ABC's target marketing of a few good shows will show its colors -and the applause meter might go on again.

The NBA has been anything but a lay up this season for television networks. Yet there seems to be a silver lining - at least for cable network TNT.

This week, TV business journalists have their annual game to see who can break stories with all the new shows, cancelled shows, and exact fall schedules right before the networks are ready to announced them. The game begins today - but already things have started on the wrong foot.

Fox took the bold step last summer to launch five scripted series in the space of few weeks - an effort that yielded mediocre ratings and cancelled shows. This summer will be a more cautious story -- maybe TV advertising activity will tell the real tale.

This isn't how one-year marriages are supposed to celebrate. NBC Universal should be crowning its one-year union as something big, long lasting, and perfectly successful. Instead, the merger has resulted in what a young marriage sometimes becomes -- a good partnership, a good honeymoon, but in a leaky and cold, one-bedroom apartment.

U.S. viewers are now a week away from continuing to be subjected to the great modern-day TV disappointment - the lack of a good network sitcom. The fall season network schedules will be released next week - and odds are there won't be a hit sitcom. The biggest network hits continue to be reality shows ("American Idol," "The Apprentice," and "Survivor") and dramas ("Desperate Housewives" and "CSI.")

Branded entertainment has a new mutation - brands that don't appear in or anyway near a TV show, even though there is a brand/TV deal. The Sundance Channel has such a deal. It will start a six-part series called the "Iconoclasts," which is being co-produced by Grey Goose Entertainment, the TV production arm of Bacardi's Grey Goose Vodka. Focusing on the creative process, the show will examine two creative innovators from the fields of film, television, architecture, design, fashion, food, music, and sports.

The TV network race is down to the wire - with Fox and CBS neck and neck looking for the big win. While both networks have claimed sweep wins here and there in the adults 18 to 49 race, it's been a long time since CBS won an entire season; Fox has never done it. That finally means by the end of this month, a new TV champ will raise what amounts to the Nielsen trophy.