You think interactive TV advertising is cool? You know -- the new type of commercials where you hit a few buttons on your remote to access additional information like a trailer for a new movie? Too bad. That is so 2011.

This year's upfront market has been a real snoozer -- a real bore. In particular, the broadcast part of the marketplace has come in slightly below estimates. Before negotiations started, the general theory was that broadcasters might gain 2% to 3% in total dollars over the $9.5 billion or so they collected a year ago. It turns out that the broadcast upfront has been virtually flat -- networks general sold slightly less inventory, 75%-77%, down from last year's big 80% or more levels.

Ominous threats from the Internet during its early life suggested the erosion of traditional TV could turn into deep and dangerous Himalayan ice crevasses. But that fear was quelled for years by reports that any and all exposure from the Internet, social media, search and online video actually fostered more TV viewing. In a sort of reversal of fortune, the old fears have risen again, due to increasing evidence from subscription video on demand (SVOD) services such as Netflix, and other vagaries in the measurement of TV viewing

In the future, my nasty mood may help find a commercial that'll fit my dark state: a sarcastic-laced promo for a wise-guy type of crime show, for example.

Intel says new TV technology will do what we believe is inevitable: With new facial recognition technology, TV will look at us as we look at it. Facial recognition will then let TV marketers figure out what we really need. Hmm... I guess that could be a shave or some new clothes. Still, this new TV technology may not be able to tell if I need some nourishment, home insurance, a new car or a new TV.

It may soon be the end of TV as we know it. But how will we know when it happens? We'll need a commercial or reality show to tell us.

TV ad buyers will need to hire a nutritionist. This will be especially true if Disney's ban on junk food advertising to kids spills over to other networks like Nickelodeon, its main competitor.

Facebook can be somewhat boring, says Sean Parker, a former investor of Facebook: "There's a part of me that feels somewhat bored by all of this. There's no room for serendipity." So here comes Parker's new venture Airtime, a video chat service. And interestingly enough, it is a Facebook application. (Wait, didn't someone just call Facebook boring?)

AMC Networks wanted to alert 15 million Dish viewers that its AMC, IFC and WE TV channels might be removed from the satellite service by the end of June as a byproduct of the carriage dispute between the two companies. AMC tried to inform Dish viewers of this fact through a commercial on its own networks -- which ran over Dish. No surprise that this didn't sit well with the folks at Dish. As a consequence, it banished the AMC networks to the hinterlands -- sky-high channel positions numbered 9607 through 9610.

One would think cable TV operators -- with all the other products they sell into households -- could almost care less about getting growth from adding more basic cable subscribers.But apparently that isn't the case for Comcast.