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The day when commercials are indistinguishable from the programs they support finally arrived on March 11.

Remember all the talk about how TV ratings for awards shows and other giant, live-programming spectacles were tanking? It looks like it was premature.

At the Association of National Advertisers' annual TV & Everything Video Forum, speaker after speaker lined up example after example of shockingly intrusive pacts that placed -- nay, shoved -- commercial messages deep into programming.

Whom do we increasingly trust less? Us.

Spain is flouting European Union laws on maximum ad time by allowing telepromotions -- features that blur the boundaries between programming and advertising -- to air over and above the 12 minutes of commercial airtime that is legally permitted each hour.

Last week's Supreme Court decision on campaign financing will be good for the media business.

China's Internet landscape -- search, digital marketing, mobile media, services like e-mail and even e-commerce -- could shift dramatically if Google does pull out of the market.

Republican Scott Brown's win of a Massachusetts Senate seat could turn out to be a boon for media companies, increasing spending on political advertising this year from the $2.8 billion originally expected.

Considering cutting your Cablevision subscription? It's not just the cable industry that would rather you didn't.

The 2010 elections will be viewed by pundits as a test of the Obama administration's popularity, but to media companies -- particularly local TV stations -- it will be viewed as a welcome stimulus package.