CBS (NYSE: CBS), which competes with Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC, News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Fox, and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC, is scheduled to report earnings for the third quarter on Thursday. This is going to be an important one for the broadcaster. Why, you ask? Well, have you checked out the company's stock lately? It's priced in single digits! As of Tuesday's close, CBS was pegged at $8.83 per share. It actually rose over 13% on that day (along with the rest of the euphoric market), so who knows, maybe it'll crack the $10 level at some point.

According to Earnings.com, Wall Street expects $0.40 per share. That's an $0.08 drop compared to the previous year's quarter. Or, we can express it as a 16.7% decrease. What investors will be looking at very carefully is the quality of the cash flow. At this point, CBS is all about the dividend. I alluded to this back in August when I talked about the broadcaster's second-quarter report. If the cash is still coming, then things might be okay. Because at a yield of over 12%, a potential investor has to be careful when considering CBS' shares.

It's been a while since we've seen sharp gains on shares of cable companies. UBS is holding its Global Media Week and Communications Conference today in New York. Earlier today, Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) surprised the markets today during a CNBC video interview when CEO Glenn Britt said that Time Warner wouldn't be in the bidding for more wireless spectrum in the FCC auction. The company had been a bidder before.

Comcast Inc. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) is also opting out of a wireless spectrum bidding. The truth is that both cable companies already have access to spectrum if needed, and there is still more spectrum available on existing infrastructure that can be used if needed.

One interesting development was when Glenn Britt described the demand for a cable company to need wireless as a quadruple play against the telecoms, who now offer video solutions that compete against cable. The old triple- play is still very under-penetrated on a nationwide basis.

Maybe it pays to be patient rather than spending a few hundred million here and a couple billion there. Sooner or later it adds up to real money. Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) has said it would be participating in the spectrum auction in January for the new, more powerful 700-MHz spectrum. If the Googlesaurs want to be rewarded similarly, maybe they'd determine it is cheaper and easier to partner for spectrum openly rather than the spend-spend-spend model.

Time Warner Cable shares are up nearly 4% to $27.05 today, and Comcast shares are up some 2.5% at $21.05. Google shares are down almost 1% at $687.15.

"Unlikely" is how the New York Times termed today's reported partnership between returning radio pariah Don Imus and RFD-TV, a 24-hour network celebrating the early-rising country life, broadcasting shows called I Love Toy Trains and The Johnnie High Country Music Revue. I wouldn't be so sure.

Launched in 2000, RFD is reportedly already available in some 30 million American homes, about 10 million fewer homes than HBO. And you can expect that to change. This deal is obviously a major coup for RFD -- whose audience will likely be fairly forgiving toward Mr. Imus -- and gives the network much stronger leverage as it pursues carriage through Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC).

Terms of the arrangement have not been disclosed, as the final deal has yet to be struck. One Times source expects RFD to pay as much as $5 million annually for the five-year deal, which, along with Imus' radio contract with Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (NYSE: CDL), would nearly match his earnings from CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS) Radio before the network yanked him this spring.

One stock this Fly has been plainly wrong in recommending has been Sirius Satellite Radio Inc (NASDAQ: SIRI). After dropping from $8 per share down to $4, it looked worthwhile bottoming fishing in this still emerging industry. However, while recommending for investors to jump into this stock, the decline did not stop as subscriber growth targets were missed for both Sirius and its main rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: XMSR).

However, this week, it appears the negative view associated with this industry may be subsiding. Sirius announced yesterday that Morgan Stanley committed a $250 million term loan for the Howard Stern broadcaster. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

This follows an upgrade from Bear Stearns' Andy Peck on Monday from Peer Perform to Outperform with a $4 price target. Peck's price target assumes no deal with XM. So it is a real bare bones price target.

Another positive coming in 2008 could be the broad installation of satellite radios in OEM car manufacturers, offsetting the weak acceptance of satellite radio in the retail distribution network.

All told, the vicious cycle that has hit the satellite radio industry appears to be subsiding. Below $3.00 per share, Sirius is worth a shot: it has customers, revenue and a lot a programming. The worst case scenario could be a terrestrial radio company acquires it.

That "bloop-bloop-bloop" you hear is the collective fast-forwarding over the commercials as households with TiVos (NASDAQ: TIVO) or other digital video recording (DVR) devices zoom through the ad breaks.

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times reports that with DVR use on the rise, the Nielsen ratings group has started to monitor how American television watchers view commercials.

Advertisers have been claiming of late that the increased use of DVRs cuts down on the actual viewing of commercials. With fewer eyes ostensibly on the advertising messages, many feel that the cost for air time should be reduced. This month, with May sweeps on the books, networks and advertisers begin work on contracts for the fall season, so these fresh Nielsen numbers may be used as a bargaining chip to calculate ad rates for prime-time space on the major networks. Last year, advertisers pledged $8.75 billion in commercial-spot dollars during the "upfront" sales season. Current expectations are for this figure to decline this year.

Let me first make my stance completely clear. As a member of the proud, yet possibly coarse foundation of American society I wish to make an open declaration based on my First Amendment right of free speech: Don Imus has made himself a broadcast journalistic wimp of the highest order.

I DO NOT condone the words that Imus chose to spew in regard to a specific class of athlete, but I do support his right to open his mouth and forcefully insert his own foot. But somewhere along the line Imus must have missed the memo which clearly explained that it's one thing to denigrate a class of athletes with whom you do not associate and who are in no position to immediately refute you and it's a completely different thing to tell someone like Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) CEO Rex Tillerson to sit down and shut up. (Umm, yeah I blogged that).

I could end this rant right here and consider myself fulfilled in chastising Mr. Imus but I really haven't brought this full circle yet. It's not enough that I simply rake him over the coals for his poor choice of wording. For me, there's yet a larger issue.

Remember when James Cameron directed the Terminator movies and he was unequivocally regarded as awesome? Then he made this little period piece about some boat sinking, proclaimed himself "King of the World," which was perceived as arrogant but was really just a quote, traded in wives, and was never really heard from for nearly a decade.

So what's the best way to move back into the limelight? Find Jesus. And not in the same way that Stephen Baldwin has. The Oscar-winning filmmaker said yesterday that a group of stone boxes, originally discovered two decades ago within a hillside tomb in Jerusalem, once held the remains of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.