Wasn't one supposed to kill the other? Annual TV ad spending is closing in on the $80 million mark, while DVRs could soon be in 50% of U.S. homes by the start of the new TV season. In an annual report, Nielsen estimates 46% of homes have a DVR, marking a 9% increase over the prior TV season. Meanwhile, the research firm says the U.S. TV market generated $76.5 million in spending in 2012, a 6.5% increase.

Advertisers might say negotiations with the Comedy Central sales team can leave them nearly stripped, so to speak. So would the network really invite clients to post photos of themselves that way on the Internet? Speaking about launch plans for the upcoming "Inside Amy Schumer," Comedy Central's marketing chief Walter Levitt says network might look to "nudify" advertisers.

TVB, the trade group representing local stations, offered up all kinds of data Thursday that at its core was an effort to forestall commercial ratings ever being used as the currency in local markets. Some of the smartest media mathematicians - the types that can zip through equations with a VPVH and PUTs - might find it difficult to sort through.

Bruce Lefkowitz pretty much declared war last month. At an upfront event, he introduced a new FX Now platform, where viewers won't be able to blitz through spots. "The strategy we've developed is one designed to obviate DVR usage," said Lefkowitz, FX's sales chief.

Libby O'Connell keeps wanting to give away shoes. With the repeated offers, you get the feeling her office is stuffed with boxes of the Stinger 2 sneaks. And exceedingly proud of her loot, she can't wait to unload them. "They're awesome," she says. The executive has the sneaks with springs embedded in the soles because of the venture capitalist route the A&E Network is taking. O'Connell, a senior vice president in corporate outreach at A+E Networks, put the initiative in motion last year.

Networks used to argue with considerable passion that making full episodes available online had little impact on ratings. The digital viewership was "additive," they'd say. Cannibalization? No way. But that position is receding. And new research from GfK backs up the evolving views with the conclusion that cannibalization is here.

Does the media embrace feuds? Of course. Bitter face-offs drive clicks, ratings, etc. Why? Because people who think the media are making too much of the battles can't get enough of them. In the media business, there are some emerging doozies.

Though the wow moments are coming more frequently, every once in a while it bears stopping to marvel at the brilliance of the engineers working across the media space. Really, what can't they do?

More than 4 billion hours of video is watched on YouTube each month. The quality, however, varies for any number of reasons. Paco Galanes, a YouTube software engineer, is striving for uniformity. No matter the device by which the content is viewed, he wants it to appear in high-definition and stream without those pesky interruptions (also known as buffering).

Predictions are starting to accelerate from Wall Street on how the upfront market will play out. The emerging consensus is volume will be slightly up at best, while pricing will increase in the mid single-digit range.