In a nutshell, cable TV companies are looking at ways to integrate the Apple apps type environment into their set top boxes to enable apps downloaded and used on TV. This story highlights two key issues. 1. There's a lot of infighting in the cable industry, and it will likely take a lot of cooperation between TV companies, cable operators and online platforms to make this work. That's a tall order. Furthermore, Apple was doing this on a phone - a single owner device that people carry with them everywhere. Not the TV in the family living room. 2.

Not sure where to start on this one. Let's see, TV's been losing viewers to other mediums, in no small part I'm convinced because of the bombardment of ads. (Don't believe me? Give up TV for a few months for online video, then go back.) So now that they're finally getting significant viewership, they're starting to dial up the ads. And here's the kicker. The ad serving company says it's about delivering "a more TV-like experience". How loud can you say "Hello"?

This campaign's interesting as much for the strategy and the creative that broke through and swept Britain. The marketer is a car insurance aggregator site; kind of like LowerMyBills. Not a very creative category. Their other challenge was that the keyword for 'market', an apparently hot keyword for this category, was $8 a click. So in comes a 'meerkat', which sounds close enough to 'market', and costs 8 cents a click. Now they just have to get people to remember the meerkat and it's advertiser.

Pretty interesting finding that 50% of almost all TV show viewers only watch 1 episode per season. Even for highly-loyal shows like American Idol. Furthermore, the data are almost identical when time-shifting is factored in. Thus DVR users view on the same trend, which I'd think would actually increase loyalty, because the show is part of a preferred way of viewing. Whatever the case, it demonstrates a large opportunity for expanding the loyalty of viewers, which could be viewed more as a CRM tactic than acquisition.

This really doesn't surprise me. Kids have been watching movies on monitors on the back of SUV seats and on various portable players for the past half-decade. I've watched TV shows on my iPhone. So yes, it can be very captivating.