Adweek.com's Top 10 Television Stories of 2012

By Tim Peterson
Right now nearly no brand knows for sure who’s watching its TV ad. Viacom isn’t about to change that, but the media giant has developed a way to help TV advertisers make sure the intended audience at least sees a brand’s display or mobile ad.
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By Anthony Crupi
Another pre-eminent media agency veteran has hopped over to the other side of the negotiating table, as MediaVest ace Donna Speciale has accepted the top ad sales post at Turner Broadcasting System’s entertainment division.
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By Sam Thielman
Under her cardigan, Margaret Loesch is wearing a black T-shirt with a cartoon pony on it. The pony, eyes closed, smile wide, appears to be cheering in a moment of utter bliss. This reflects how Loesch—in Manhattan to prepare for upfront season—feels about producing reboots of Gen X-targeted shows like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the upcoming Care Bears: Welcome to Care-a-Lot in her role as president and CEO of The Hub, Hasbro’s joint venture with Discovery.
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By Mike Shields
Chris Matthews must be getting that tingling feeling down his leg again. He and his colleagues may soon have a giant news site to call their own. That’s because NBCUniversal is in serious negotiations with Microsoft to buy back MSNBC.com.
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By Anthony Crupi
Perhaps no series is more emblematic of cable’s summer slate than the HBO vampire drama True Blood. A gory bouillabaisse of sex, death and escapism, Alan Ball’s gleefully erratic swamp opera seems to share a strand of DNA with nearly every show on cable.
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By Adweek staff
"Hot" is, of course, relative. We reserve the designation for those media brands and media people thriving despite competition, market forces and that bugaboo of every business: the ever elusive consumer. Across weeks, we studied factors including advertising business, audience numbers, category supremacy, creativity, innovation, industry accolades and social buzz. We also invited you to chime in—and that you did, to the tune of more than 1 million votes. Now check out the winners—just try not to get scorched.
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By Sam Thielman
Boy, you kids really like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, huh? You write-in-vote like it, all over our Hot List Poll. We surrender. You have won. We will include a special mention of the best show in the history of ever in the Hot List issue on Dec. 3. We hope you are happy—I will probably end up writing it.
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By Anthony Crupi
NBC has doubled down on its franchise musical-competition series and scripted comedy, planning fall and spring cycles of The Voice and sprinkling sitcoms across four nights.
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By Emma Bazilian
For its latest spot from ad agency Being in New York, Wheat Thins has enlisted a famous pair of spokes-cartoons: Brian and Stewie from Family Guy. And since Wheat Thins' current slogan is "Do what you do" (don't ask me how that's supposed to sell crunchy wheat snacks), this commercial shows the highly verbal baby and his disgruntled canine companion doing what they do best—which is, of course, fighting.
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By Melissa Hoffman
The upfronts are supposed to be an opportunity for cable and broadcast networks—and now digital content providers—to unveil their slates of new programming before an audience of advertising executives, in a bid to impress said execs into turning their pockets inside out.
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