Some TV executives are crowing about the pending boom in advertising, which we believe could not only help broadcasters and media companies like CBS Corp. (CBS), Viacom, Inc. (VIA) and The Walt Disney Company (DIS) as well as satellite pay-TV providers like DirecTV (DTV) and Dish Network (DISH). Our price estimate for DirecTV stands at $48.63 which is roughly a premium of 7% to the market price.

Analyst Upgrades

• Macquarie upgraded Intel (INTC) to outperform from neutral and Advanced Micro (AMD) to neutral from underperform.
• Pfizer (PFE) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at Bernstein.
• Capstead Mortgage (CMO) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at FBR Capital.
• Oppenheimer upgraded Halliburton (HAL) to outperform from perform.
• Gilead (GILD) was upgraded to outperform from sector perform at RBC Capital.
• Skilled Healthcare (SKH) was upgraded to outperform from market perform at JMP Securities.
• Citigroup upgraded CapitalSource (CSE) to buy from hold.

Option traders appear to be setting up for a bullish move on Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (MOO). Traders plowed into 2,601 new call option contracts -- 20.81 times the average volume -- on the stock on Wednesday. And we know that traders were eager to get into this trade because 89% of the trades came in on the ask price.

The ETF closed Wednesday at $45.60, up 4.35% during the past month.

TiVo Inc. (TVO) has been desperately trying to find as many strategies as possible to ensure it stays the household name among the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) market. From a marketing perspective, the term "DVR" trumping the term "tivo" could signal the television recording pioneer's downfall. Based on its latest quarterly numbers, it may already be happening.

For the fifth time in a row, TiVo recorded a quarterly loss. This after just announcing the TiVo Premiere product that intends to integrate television/cable/satellite with web-based video content and give the customer a single interface for all their video. Problem #1: it's $300 -- quite a wallop. Problem #2: the competition is heating up fast. What does TiVo intend to do about it? If it can't make money on its hardware and subscribers are being lost to competing DVR services on cable and satellite networks, there's darkness on the horizon.

Nielsen ratings have always been an imperfect system of projecting who is watching what when. The advent of DVR technology and internet-streamed programming have made the television ratings game even more challenging.

So the major TV companies -- General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) -- have teamed together to fight against Nielsen, which not only delivers arguably flawed data, but charges a hefty fee to do so.

Well, as Boorstin rightly points out, CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, and News Corp.'s (NASDAQ: NWS) Fox do need to worry. These DVR technologies basically translate to a drop in the economic value of advertising. Let's face it: who watches commercials when they don't have to?

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO) programmed some time for itself in the earnings confessional this afternoon, announcing first-quarter earnings results that topped analysts' estimates.

Service and technology revenue totaled $48.5 million, edging out Street expectations of $48.2 million. TiVo posted a net loss of $4.1 million, or four cents per share, two cents better than the six-cent loss analysts were expecting. Results were lower, however, in comparison to the company's year-ago profit of $3.6 million, or four cents per share. TiVo added 37,000 subscribers in the period (down from 48,000 in last year's first quarter) and churn rate was 1.4%.

While other earnings may have disappointed last week, the news was good for oil giant ConocoPhilips (NYSE: COP). In what some took as a good sign for big oil, the Houston-based company reported that third quarter net income surged 41% year over year to $3.39 per share, and that revenue also surged 52% to $70 billion. We'll see whether the good news extends to other petroleum giants scheduled to report quarterly results this week.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are looking for BP (NYSE: BP) profits to have grown 43.2% in the most recent quarter to $2.34 per share on revenue of $109.7 billion, and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) to post earnings up 39.4% to $3.25 per share on revenue of $86.8 billion. Marathon Oil Corp. (NYSE: MRO), ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS.A) likewise are expected to report higher net income of $2.33 per share (sales of $23.4 billion), $2.40 per share (sales of $131.4 billion), and $2.65 per share, respectively. Even Valero Energy Corp. (NYSE: VLO) is expected to post earnings slightly higher to $1.46 per share (sales of $36.4 billion), despite the effects of Hurricane Ike. Among these companies, only BP and Valero beat earnings expectations in the previous quarter. Not surprisingly, analysts on average recommend buying all except Valero, and shares of all of these companies have recently hit 52-week lows.

"First recommended in September 2004, Helix Energy Solutions (NYSE: HLX) is the oldest holding on our Buy List - and the biggest winner, gaining 133%," notes Richard Moroney.

Here, the editor of Upside explain, "Considering its bright profit-growth prospects, reasonable valuation, and impressive Quadrix scores, Helix remains among our very best ideas and a top pick in the oil patch."

"Helix serves energy producers worldwide, providing such contract services (36% of total revenue for the nine months ended September) as deepwater pipe-laying, well operations, robotics, and reservoir services.

"The shelf-contracting business (34%) consists of 59%-owned Cal Dive International (NYSE: DVR), a provider of dive-related and shallow-water construction services.

"The fast-growing oil and natural gas production business (30%) focuses on marginal, mature, and smaller fields - properties no longer significant or viable for large energy companies. Fueled partly by high energy prices, petroleum companies are increasingly targeting mature and small reservoirs.

General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE)'s NBC seems to have bought into the new program. It will use the TiVo product to help its advertisers do a better job of reaching their audiences. "Advertisers have been asking us to help them find new ways to make TV advertising more effective," Mike Pilot, president of NBC Universal Sales and Marketing, told The Wall Street Journal.

TiVo's product does not seem to help advertisers with certain critical problems like skipping commercials on shows that were recorded by the consumer to be viewed later. It is also not clear whether individual viewing behavior is an effective way to make advertising work better. Just because a 50-year old man is watching a show about a car does not mean he is in the market for a new vehicle.

Once TiVo or another company can offer a service that allows marketers to know what the viewer is thinking, they may have a service that really works.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Yahoo! deserved its exclamation point today. The stock ran up $1.01 (more than $1!), which amounts to a 3% jump for the now $33 stock.

Message boards were jumping today as investors cheered the rally. "Yhoo, two year low, going back up!" proclaimed one poster. Another: "The lights are green for a buy!" Why such optimism? Probably because the stock was going up, of course. The message boards referred to an analyst upgrade that I could find no evidence of.

However, what I did find is a lot of talk in the blogosphere about Yahoo! Go, the company's new free DVR player fueled by its purchase of Meedio (more thoughts and links on the technology and what it means for Microsoft's media player from Techcrunch). The folks at The Fly On The Wall (subscription required) attributed Yahoo's run-up to excitement over the new service.

As our stock blogger notes, this could be a huge business for Yahoo. Try it yourself and let us know what you think. If it really changes the way we watch TV -- and once Wall Street catches on to the implications -- Yahoo shares could get more of a boost.