CBS has struck a deal that would enable Verizon customers who subscribe to its new V Cast service to watch certain of its programs on their cell phones. Among the shows that would be available in limited form: "Late Show with David Letterman," "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," "CSI," "Survivor," and certain CBS News broadcasts. The service begins its rollout this month. In making the announcement, Cyriac Roeding, vice president of wireless for CBS Digital Media, said, "At the intersection of the mobile phone and the television lies tremendous programming, promotion, and brand-extension potential."

Continuing her rapid rise through mediadom, Food Network star Rachael Ray has got a definite go for her own syndicated TV show, King World has announced. "The demand [for Ray] is unbelievable," King World president Roger King said. "To have this much of the country cleared in just a few weeks is a testament to the tremendous talent and popularity" of Ray. The chef's new program has been sold in all but four of the country's top 50 markets, including every one of the top 25. Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions will be among the producers of the new King World …

Speaking at an industry breakfast earlier this week, Magazine Publishers of America chairman Jack Kliger called on his colleagues to be more forthcoming about circulation of individual titles within their publishing companies. "We need to embrace, not resist, transparency in circulation reporting," said Kliger, president-CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. "Practices that are unacceptable in any other line of business should certainly not be tolerated in ours." He was responding to the oft-made charges that some publishers rely on various schemes, including "dumping" of magazines, to artificially inflate circulation figures provided to advertisers. The MPA has historically been hypersensitive on …

Branded Entertainment, a VNU-operated Web site, has run a good piece on TiVo's plan to launch an advertising-on-demand system, which has raised some eyebrows in the media business. Writer Brian Morrissey quotes various industry sources, including TiVo chairman Tom Rogers, on the viability of the plan, which has been likened to Google's enormously successful keywords ad model. Branded Entertainment's Morrissey: "Will TiVo users seek out commercials, when they tend to skip them on TV? The first hurdle, [Tom] Rogers admits, is getting viewers comfortable with the notion of using their TVs to search for product information. But he points out …

MarketWatch media columnist Jon Friedman says the decision by ABC News executives to anoint Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff as co-anchors of the network's nightly newscast was a cop-out. He reminds his readers of the decidedly spotty success of other network co-anchor teams of the past. "In general, viewers in the U.S. haven't embraced the multiple-anchor format," Friedman says. "For most, the position appears to require a single soothing authority figure--probably because the most important news each day is almost always bad. Maybe it is confusing, even disorienting, to pay attention to more than one person at a time." Friedman …

While many news outlets, relying on a story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, reported that America Online appears to have selected former rival Microsoft for an expansive joint advertising deal, Reuters reports its sources say Google remains very much in the running for essentially the same type of deal with the resurgent Time Warner unit. "At least one more round of discussions is planned with each of the two parties," a source told Reuters. While some investors may be disappointed by AOL's refusal to enter into a stake sale, which they believe would more rapidly lead to a stock-price increase …

The Hollywood Reporter's Diane Mermigas says those who believe big-media stocks are languishing because conglomerates, by their very nature, hide the value of their individual units, are way off-base.  The explanation for the depressed share prices of the media monoliths, argues the veteran industry observer, is more complex. "Just maybe it isn't the mix of media assets, but the way they are being managed.  Just maybe it is an absence of visionary leadership and enterprising strategies necessary to adapt to the change [to a digital broadband world] and make the most of the new opportunities," Mermigas says.  While some …

Good news for movie-theater owners: A new forecast indicates it's very likely that more ads will be shown in theaters, at least for the foreseeable future. For moviegoers, of course, that's bad news. But they'll have to put up with the inconvenience because lackluster theater attendance in 2005 depressed industry revenues, forcing theater owners to search for other revenue streams. Ad forecaster ZenithOptimedia said this week that spending on in-theater advertising increased 18 percent in 2005 and probably will go up by about 15 percent every year through 2008. Digital projection, installed in many state-of-the-art theaters these days, has made …

A year after relaunching as a weekend newspaper supplement, and amid much industry buzz centered on its perceived lifelessness, especially on the ad side, Time Inc.'s Life magazine is finally showing some improved vital signs. The book "may finally be catching on," observes Media Life, the online site. "The magazine has secured more than 30 advertisers who have never before appeared in weekend supplements, and it projects ad pages for the fourth quarter will be up 40 percent over the 2004 period." Some of the magazine's higher-end advertisers--Pontiac, Charles Schwab, and American Express--do not book space in Life's main …

A half dozen morning TV shows in large markets, including Atlanta, Denver, and Cleveland, are selling on-air segments to advertisers at $2,500 a pop. The shows, which carry slightly different titles in each city, are slotted into Gannett-owned stations. And the sponsored segments, while briefly identified as being such, are designed to fit seamlessly into the programming. The shows' standard hosts appear in the segments, which helps erode the line between normal programming and advertising. Most of the advertisers to date have been local--dentists, auto dealers, and home builders--but some regional and national advertisers are also beginning to take advantage …