I loved the lead in today’s Broadcasting & Cable newsletter in regards to upfronts Flat Is the New Up: “CBS is down 8%, while Fox and ABC are down double-digits — 11% and 15%, respectively. Fourth-place NBC is flat. Buyers expect the networks to ask for CPM inflation increases, but this season’s poor ratings may make higher ticket prices hard to justify.”

But brand advertisers still look to TV for reach, and well positioned TV networks will be in prime position to sell them digital. That was more or less the sentiment offered by Les Moonves earlier this year at the McGraw Hill Media Summit:

We haven’t had original programming since November 20th, that’s a big chunk of time, furthermore we’ve changed our ratings system…so by definition the numbers are different…

We’re more of a mass market mass-medium so ultimately we say you want to buy for national we’ve got that you want to buy local we have billboards we have radio we have local stations…if you have a dollar to spend we can spend the whole dollar for you, we can show you how it can fit for our CBS properties without having to go elsewhere.

And this continues to be the general perception of most network media execs. While media fragments, TV is still the biggest draw. At the same time networks are branching out into digital programming and other advertising platforms which combined with their traditional ad sales should place them in a very competitive position.

For example, I spoke with a FOX executive at the IAB forum last week who mentioned the power of selling MySpace advertising as a digital and international extension. This adds tremendous, measurable value across the board, and is a present day example of media convergence, if not one directly visible to users.

While it’s easy to say new media is hurting networks, because of their entrenched position and scale, it is more likely to help them in the long run so long as they’re smart about integration.

Lets just cut right to the chase. I’m going to have to pony up the money for the Extra Innings package through my cable company.

I used both the Silverlight and NextDef plugins to try and get to the “TV Quality” that is advertised for the 1.2MB stream from MLB.TV’s Premium package. What TV? Well, on a 42″ 1080p plasma screen, the stream looks like your grandmother’s 20 year old RCA with the picture tube on its last legs.

The good news? MLB.TV’s premium package looks fantastic on a laptop or on a 22″ widescreen monitor plugged into the computer. Plain and simple, it looks great. If, hypothetically, you wanted to watch this afternoon’s Red Sox game while you were writing a press release, you wouldn’t be disappointed in the least with the offering. Stutter free, high quality audio and video without any sign of noise in the signal. If you were in a hotel room with basic cable in a city where you can’t even begin to fathom watching the local game, you’d also be spared the usual agony. And without a doubt, the stream beats the quality of watching your cable box over a Slingbox.

The bad news is that MLB.TV’s offering just isn’t up to what I’m going to call “livingroom quality.” There will be, for the foreseeable future, a balance between convenience and quality, and that value can’t be underestimated. I would rather have watched the Red Sox make a triumphant late inning comeback to beat the (Walker) Texas Rangers on Sunday than any other game, but it came at a price. Or rather, a choice of prices.

I could have sat at my desk with my 22″ monitor and been perfectly happy with the quality of the video stream. But alas, thats not what my experiment is all about. We’re talking convergence. We’re talking “lean back.” We’re talking sitting on your sofa with a few friends, a few beers and seeing if anyone notices that you aren’t watching cable, let alone HDTV. Unfortunately, it didn’t take more than 5 seconds for the first person to speak up, and they spoke up loud and clear. “What’s wrong with your TV? This sucks!”

Did it suck? No, not really. We wouldn’t have been able to watch the game at all, and that is a luxury in its own right. But is it on par with even regular TV? Not yet. So road warriors, sign up without any hesitation. But if you plan on watching full screen baseball without a pixelated, monochromatic outfield, you better call your cable company for the time being.

For anyone keeping track, the test PC uses an Intel Core2 CPU 6600 @ 2.4GHz, 4GB of RAM and an nVidia 7900 GS video card connected with a DVI-to-HDMI cable to a Panasonic 42″ TH-42PZ700U 1080p TV. Windows XP Pro SP2.

Yes, thats vague. But I could tell you that my weekend pick was Matzah and gefilte fish, but thats not what I’m looking forward to at all.

Over the past week, I’ve spoken with reps from a number of the major video aggregators and streaming providers about their recommended settings for outputting video from the web to TV. I also purchased a monthly subscription to the MLB.TV Premium Package for their 1.2MB stream. I’ll be tweaking my video card and TV and starting OVW’s own convergence video shootout.

Beyond the novelty factor, what online video can really replicate - or even hold its own - against a TV offering? On my previous experiments, I’d been using an s-video output into a regular CRT display. Now we’ve added DVI/HDMI outputs to the mix, and a 1080p plasma TV to the mix, which may not be as forgiving. We’ll just have to see.

We’ve yet to decide if we’ll do a comprehensive comparison, or share our thoughts on a rolling basis, but I’m looking forward to Arrested Development on Hulu, a few movies on Netflix’s Watch Now, and maybe Veoh’s most popular content, Star Trek (ok, maybe less so for the Star Trek, but I’m sure I’ll find something to enjoy). I’ve had some issues with Microsoft’s Silverlight player with my previous MLB experiments, but I’m hoping they’ve worked through them. Do the TV networks have a leg up when the screen you watch on is a TV? My sofa and I look forward to finding out…..just as soon as we’re done with our Seder.