CBS Television Stations Launch First-Of-Its-Kind Revenue Sharing Partnership With Local Blogs And Social Media Websites

CBS Television Stations today announced the launch of the CBS Local Ad Network, a first-of-its-kind partnership between a major media company’s television stations and local bloggers and social media Web sites.



CBS-owned stations across the country are now syndicating local news “widgets” to a variety of blogs and hyper-local sites in the communities they serve. Each widget will feature top local headlines and images with links to the video and text stories on the CBS station’s site. Included in the widget is a companion banner advertisement.



The CBS stations will deliver real-time news feeds to the widget, allowing the content on the local partner sites to constantly change and update 24 hours a day.



CBS stations now have the ability to offer marketers the ability to broadly and efficiently reach a local audience, while remaining attached to CBS station brand and content.



In exchange for publishing the CBS local news widgets, owners of the local sites will receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by the CBS stations, which will be responsible for selling the ad inside each widget.



The recruitment and management of local blogs and social media sites that will form the core of the CBS Local Ad Network is being administered by SyndiGO, a new division of Seevast Corp., a leading provider of advertising networks and network enabling services. For more information please visit http://www.syndigonetworks.com/cbs.



The CBS Local Ad Network already has received support from major advertisers, including AT&T (partnering with cbs2chicago.com and cbs2.com/kcal9.com), North Texas Honda Dealers (partnering with cbs11tv.com) and Liberty Mutual Insurance (partnering with wbztv.com in Boston).



“The CBS Local Ad Network again positions our stations at the forefront of an unprecedented locally focused venture,“ said Jonathan Leess, President and General Manager, CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group. “After first setting the standard for local news coverage online, our stations now lead the effort to engage other local sites – and we invite them to share in the revenue. The CBS Local Ad Network also opens up exciting new avenues for our advertising partners to efficiently extend their reach to valued local audiences while associating themselves with our CBS brands and content.”



The CBS Local Ad Network has already been launched in Boston (wbztv.com), Dallas/Fort Worth (cbs11tv.com), San Francisco (cbs5.com), Denver (cbs4denver.com) and Chicago (cbs2chicago.com). The roll out will continue over the next several weeks and also include the CBS-owned stations in New York (wcbstv.com), Los Angeles (cbs2.com and kcal9.com), Philadelphia (cbs3.com), Minneapolis-St. Paul (wcco.com), Miami (cbs4.com), Sacramento (cbs13.com), Pittsburgh (kdka.com) and Baltimore (wjz.com).