How can pay channels compete with the rest of the digital world? The answer is, from smartly written and/or unusual programming -- shows that probably could not attract a financial supporting contingent of mainstream advertisers.

Do the rich get richer? Or, does it just look the way to the rest of us, with less in our pockets? Television executives realized a long time ago -- when broadcast rating erosion became an annual event unto itself -- that maintaining share, even in an overall market of declining ratings, is good news. For other, more pessimistic TV watchers, it's really like eating steak for the first time on the Titanic when the ship is going down. You feel good. But somehow you know indigestion and a cold shower is around the corner.

Television marketing can sometimes come down to inches -- or, for some networks, about an eighth of an inch.That's the minimum size TV Guide seems to devote to one line of program scheduling for the likes of "MSNBC," "Planet Green," or "Style" in its program listings. Bigger networks can get a quarter inch of space across a page. (CBS: "The Unit. CC: Mack is seriously wounded on a mission. HD New.")

Forget about pumping up the automotive business; it's the porn industry that needs some financial pull. According to CNN, adult video sales are struggling with a downward trend in revenue. As result, business executives are pleading for a modest $5 billion bailout to keep business - firm. (Sorry).

TV in 3-D? I don't see it. I'm looking for better story lines, interesting characters, and series endings where local New Jersey gangsters are sitting in a diner when the screen goes black.

Hold everything, and strike Feb. 17 from your calendar. According to a number of concerned parties, the federal plan to change TV signals to all digital by that date isn't working. There's a bigger question: What else will be postponed?

Local TV media buyers still want what their national TV media buyer colleagues have: the ability to track commercials. This takes on a more crucial perspective in 2009.

The Consumer Electronics Show can only do so much for traditional TV/entertainment content players looking to extend their businesses. In the next few days, at the CES annual get-together, maybe we'll find out how much.

In just the last two years, 25% of network TV's prime-time viewers have departed, and, odds are, they aren't coming back. At the same time TV program costs have skyrocketed. Wonder why NBC is going with Leno every day at 10 p.m.? The future of network TV is actually the future of TV syndication.

We are only at stage one of the recession -- and one wonders if alternative digital media has already missed its opportunity. To hear traditional TV media sales and buying executives talk, there is still no discernible pullback from national TV advertising -- all while marketers have made drastic cutbacks of local TV and other media areas.