The future of TV will still be familiar -- more so than you think. Even an Internet advertising pioneer thinks so. Speaking at the Borrell Associates Local Online Advertising Conference, Dave Morgan said, "After 19 years in online media, I got into television. Not interactive TV. I mean linear TV as it is delivered today." Linear TV! That television reference means a straight line -- to somewhere. We know one straight fact right now: There are some 70% of U.S households that still view TV this way.

The big three American automakers have had some bad news about their survivability over the past year or so. But, while they bought fewer TV ads overall, that was purely an economic decision. It didn't seem to be a way for them to take out their frustrations with the editorial side of news operations by punishing the business side and decreasing ad spend. Now one ABC News report suggests that some Toyota dealerships are doing just that.

David Letterman appeared in a promo during the Super Bowl with Oprah Winfrey and Jay Leno. Question: What was this promo for -- and who gets the real marketing value? This might have been confusing for some concerned executives, especially since Jay Leno is due to return to "The Tonight Show" on NBC next month, again in direct competition with CBS' "Late Show."

If it's MTV's "Jersey Shore," or a foul-mouthed rock star presenter at an awards show, or a loud, raw-language-speaking pundit on a news, sports, or music variety program, viewers can be tweaked to watch. Yet a week ago CBS's Grammy Awards didn't have any controversial moments, and the show's ratings soared 35%, to their highest level in six years.

How can we tell if the Comcast-NBC merger will be a good thing? Here are some possible consequences if all goes well (among them made by NBC Universal president/CEO Jeff Zucker and Comcast chairman/CEO Brian Roberts in recent Senate hearings)...

Make TV events bigger, and everyone should be happy. Or maybe not -- how about viewers watching smaller video screens?

Media companies want to seed interest in TV shows, networks, and services, on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other places -- but not everyone is interested in building a relationship with a brand. What's the payoff for me reading this tweet, or sampling that TV show?

Fox is the "most trusted" name in TV news, at least according to its recent advertisements. But, according to a press release from the Public Policy Polling group -- the group Fox cites for this claim -- the truth is less black-and-white.

When does a TV series really end? ABC says this is the final season of "Lost" -- and from all the plain-speaking marketing, that's what we are led to believe. Yet, just about the time of the critics tour, there was inside talk that said Disney/ABC was thinking about "Lost" the same way Paramount thinks about "Star Trek," or how Warner Bros. thinks about "Sex in the City," or maybe even how someone will feel about "The Sopranos."