Cross-channel promotion is nothing new in the still-strong cable and satellite TV distribution world. But channel-carriage promotion is another story. With growing numbers of new bandwidth-hungry HD channels, where is the endgame?

Competing TV screens or complementary TV screens? The CW has been cheered by media buyers not only because it offers a similar number of commercials online as it does on its traditional network, but because its young-skewing viewers "watch" the commercials to completion. (Media buyers also love that the CW's online CPMs are more in line with traditional TV CPMs -- way less than other premium digital TV content.)

What do you keep? What do you give away? Take a big breath. In this digital world, as it concerns TV, you need to do both. And maybe give more away free than you think.

Shelf space. Brick and mortar. Line extension. Do these somewhat archaic business terms still help consumers find their TV and movie content?

Recently Discovery's Science Channel went to just Science; now NBC Universal's Sleuth goes to Cloo. More name changes are coming, no doubt, as networks look to stand out in this ever-fractionalizing TV world. And who needs to be called a "channel" anyway?

Two point two million viewers and you can't get any advertising support? Is that what happen to Glenn Beck? Three years and out?

Seems that AMC Theaters is complying with one big movie studio's request to help out our hunger with a real-time combination of entertainment and food. Sony Pictures Entertainment encouraged AMC to make healthier snacks available, instead of just chips, popcorn and fizzy sugary drinks, which, when combined with movies, builds the wrong kind of bulk -- especially among kids.

The federal government might close down in the next couple of days -- and who is at fault? You'll never guess. In a gym locker room -- with a CNN newscast blaring overhead -- an elderly man was moaning how he'd lived in this country for 55 years, and despite threats in previous years to the same, the government had never shut down. "You know why this is happening?" he asked any and all who would listen. "To sell TV commercials!" "

Faced with Hollywood studios' new digital movie efforts, so-called premium VOD, theatrical exhibitors fear lower revenues. But the theater owners have something up their sleeves: they can curtail valuable in-theater marketing. Is there a lesson here for TV stations and their respective networks?

Will this year's TV upfront be strong? Hey, can Schwarzenegger still benchpress 225 pounds? (Soon he'll be in the comics, I'm told. So I'm guessing he can still push stuff around). Last year's modestly healthy CPM increases of 7% to 9% on the broadcast and cable networks could be much more this year -- perhaps a seemingly unbelievable 12% to 15%, according to some recent estimates, a range not regularly witnessed since the late '80s/early '90s.