Moaning about "Rock Center with Brian Williams" and its low ratings (under 2 million viewers)? Hey, these things take time and, more importantly, you may not be considering the overall picture: what the 10 p.m. slot is becoming and what the show means to the late news shows on NBC's affiliates.

To party or not to party? Everyone likes a good schmooze -- especially when it's connected to big-time television, and you can hang with Zooey Deschanel.

Have social media and television together become too much of a good thing? Seemingly everyone wants to get a foothold in social media, believing it is the next entertainment or marketing platform for all things television. Now comes warning of a collapse, or at least a consolidation of players.

Copycat! Can't networks think up their own original ideas? Well, maybe not. But no worries.

Want to see more family programming on TV? Then tell advertisers they might have to pay higher CPMs for potentially lower-rated shows. Doesn't sound so good? Well, that might be the only formula that gets networks to shift their programming efforts.

Marketers aim to pick the right video advertising inventory. In that regard, Nielsen says the amount of national TV inventory rose 14% in 2011 over the previous year. Decades ago, one might have viewed this added "glut" of TV ad inventory as a problem. Now there are other pressing problems such as time-shifting, viewer erosion on broadcast, and an even bigger concern: not enough hoarding shows on cable.

The show isn't on the air yet. Yet there are protests in anticipation of Howard Stern's stint as a judge on NBC's top-rated summer show, "America's Got Talent."If you are an NBC executive, you might say privately, "Thank you!" Marketing-wise, this is a plus for NBC, which has already been touting the show.

Unless you don't believe Nielsen -- and there are people in this camp -- 98% of premium video viewing remained on traditional TV as of the fourth quarter 2011, all after many years of growing digital video platforms.

Ask yourself the obvious question about original programming on digital platforms: How can the likes of Hulu, YouTube, AOL or Yahoo pay for topflight programming, stuff consumers are used to seeing on traditional TV? Answer: Right now, they are not paying topflight talent that much -- maybe as low as $15 an hour.

We exist in a media a la carte world when it comes to new digital platforms. After all, the program -- or the content -- is the thing. Less importance is based on a program's association with Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or YouTube. But in the old TV world - specifically the current cable TV scenario - that means a lot, especially to the likes of independent network owners such as Bloomberg Television. For its part, Bloomberg wants to be in the next to the big cable news networks -- all to help push along its business.