• by Wayne Friedman , November 14, 2006

Viacom Plus, the six-year-old cross-media platform selling division of CBS and Viacom, will be revamped into a new selling division devoted to Viacom-only properties. CBS will also look to start up its own multimedia division in the near future, according to a CBS spokesman.

Since 2000, the division has struck some $500 million in annual deals--with the biggest chunk being that of a $350 million annual deal with the large TV advertiser Procter & Gamble.

In January, CBS and Viacom broke into two separate publicly traded companies. At the time, the two said Viacom Plus would continue to sell assets of both companies in multimedia advertising packages. Now, according to a CBS spokesman, Viacom Plus will no longer sell any CBS assets.

The division actually began in 1998 as CBS Plus and morphed into Viacom Plus in 2000. Former Viacom president and COO Mel Karmazin was a major force in pushing cross-media deals for the division.