Nintendo TVii intends to streamline the experience further, casting aside your cable box remote for built-in channel guides and DVR programming (coffee table's starting to look pretty sparse, eh?).

ENGADGET: Nintendo's Wii U tablet controller and the death of your TV's remote control

Yet current casting is not so monolithic, and it varies from cable to network, from sick-joke satire to earnest heart-tugger.

NEWYORKER: Primary Colors

Assuming there would be room at the top with Comcast's Steve Burke, the likely candidate to run the combined company (See "Casting Hollywood's New Power Player"), Zucker will have to hope that his cable successes outweigh his broadcast flops in the eyes of his prospective new bosses.

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