Up until recently, only the Super Bowl has been the big stage for getting one's TV commercial talked about. Then the Internet changed everything. Now comes the bad news: Viral is now a tougher business.

Digital pennies may not work for big television companies -- but they may be just the ticket for smaller, independent musicians. YouTube has expanded "Musicians Wanted," its partner program for musicians where artists receive a piece of revenues from advertising or video rentals.

Whenever the new Conan O'Brien's show starts up, expect one thing for sure -- lower visibility for the short term, perhaps less viewership than he got on NBC.

Wouldn't you like to be a member of AT&T's marketing department today? Several weeks ago you gained major points with women for dropping a major golf sponsorship you had with Tiger Woods. Now, weeks later, as a TV and event sponsor of CBS' part of The Masters golf tournament, AT&T stands to reach men in record numbers.

The FCC's National Broadband Plan has many optimistic and publicly uplifting goals -- and that is where things usually fall apart. Broadcasters are worried; perhaps the FCC is looking to push them aside.

Now, in a more time-shifted and more-digital TV world, we're adding more media consumers' chores to the mix -- texting, emailing, surfing and talking on the phone. And researchers say we find time for all of it.

Is everything on TV beginning to look the same? In any genre, it's now kind of hard to tell shows apart: dramatic medical shows, crime procedurals, reality shows, singing and dancing competition shows. At least this is what Writers Guild West President and veteran television producer John Wells ("ER," "The West Wing," "Southland") believes has happened, all due to media consolidation, which has led to "homogenized content."

n the vast entertainment landscape, consumers should be able to get their entertainment options in all formats. But when it comes to the Oscar-award-winning "The Hurt Locker, theater owners have made sort of an old-time stand. It's based on the fact the movie has already been in DVD release since January. When that happens, there is no turning back to theaters. So you can forget about the Oscar revenue effect for "Hurt Locker." The movie has been playing in 300 theaters, not anywhere near the 3,000 it could be playing in, if it were at a wider screen release from …

The cable industry wants a review of all those retransmission rules. But it should consider that review only in the context of what their viewers really want to see. And that may lead to where the cable industry doesn't really want to go: the question of a la carte programming.

In this TV world -- unless you have an Oscars or a Super Bowl broadcast -- grabbing big masses of TV viewers with one big hit is difficult. Still, TV networks and programmers do what they can these days to make sure everyone will see their programming wares. Media companies are using a technique called "road-blocking," formerly in vogue for TV commercial messaging: running programs across all of their networks and channels.