1.   After years of white-hot intensity, most recently driven by a media buying frenzy by start-up dot-com companies, the television advertising marketplace is cooling by almost all accounts.

2.   Indeed, commercial time on pro football games for September and October is, to use an expression of the TV advertising marketplace, very well sold.

3.   NBC had to sell its revamped strategy into an advertising marketplace that was the worst in decades.

4.   The advertising marketplace is so strong right now that NBC could sell that time at high prices to new advertisers.

5.   The bitterness of some cable operators can be traced back two decades to their resentment of the power wielded by their broadcasting rivals over the advertising marketplace.

6.   They may look impressive, but they do not have the value in the advertising marketplace that winners would like to think.

7.   But the Winter Olympics airing on rival NBC in February will likely dampen the sports advertising marketplace, hurting performance at ESPN, the company said.