CBS SportsLine.com Beefs Up Offerings

Continuing its self-styled 'cable news bypass strategy,' CBS Sports is pooling its resources with CBS SportsLine.com in order to make all of its sports-related content available all the time, the Viacom properties announced Thursday.

Visitors to the new site, which is expected to launch today, can now access original video shots for CBS SportsLine along with the CBS Sports library, said CBS Sports President Sean McManus and CBS Digital Media President Larry Kramer, in a conference call with reporters Thursday.

SportsLine is also rejiggering its home page to include a broadband video player, and the induction of "glogs," or blogs that cover live sports events.

Pre-roll advertising from the advertisers, including Nike and Visa, will be run before featured broadband content. The announcement comes two months after CBS News announced a similar making-over of its online properties as a 24-hour broadband network.

"We believe that if the cable news networks knew when they started their businesses what they know now, they might not have placed the same investment on cable," said Kramer upon the initial 'bypass' announcement in July.

Nielsen//NetRatings reported that in July CBS, SportsLine.com drew 3.7 million visitors, which is modest compared to ESPN's site, which drew 12.3 million; Yahoo! Sports, which drew 10.4 million; and Fox Sports, which pulled 10.3 million that month.

Separately, CBS News said Thursday that its "Public Eye" blog will launch this coming Monday. The blog, meant to open a direct line of communication between the news staff and the public, will be edited by Vaughn Ververs, who most recently served as editor of "The Hotline," a Washington political newsletter.

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