• by January 24, 2006

TELL A VISION -- It seems the new CBS may have more vision than we first gave it credit for. Just to prove it, CBS has made Vision an official operating unit within its new media empire. Vision, of course, is the new, corporate-wide research enterprise that will be headed by media visionary Dave Poltrack, who also has become chief research officer of the entire company. That means Dave is responsible for understanding not just how people watch CBS' network, local and syndicated TV shows, but also why they tune in CBS radio stations, pause to gaze at CBS - er, Viacom--Outdoor billboards, how they read Simon & Schuster's paperbacks, or why they stand in lines at Paramount Parks. In an ironic parting of ways, CBS has sought to consolidate a corporate-wide multimedia research function just as its emancipated sibling Viacom Inc. deconsolidates its, showing long-time research diva Betsy Frank the door.

But the aptly named Poltrack, will do more than simply poll performance of CBS' media assets and track their results. He will also be responsible for envisioning future opportunities and obstacles for a company that is still mainly known for its traditional media assets, but which has made it clear it has a hankering to play on a broader, as-yet-to-be-realized digital and non-linear media playing field. We've chided CBS for its old school predisposition, but the truth is, it has as good a chance of cracking the new media code as anyone else. Maybe more so. Especially with the right vision.

For all analog inertia trapped inside that company, it also has a tremendous amount of leverage in the elements that will help define the new media organization of the future: unsurpassed distribution, sublime marketing and promotional clout, a keen sense for creating winning content, and perhaps most important of all, a true understand of the consumers it serves.

Yeah, Google's great, but until it acquires CBS, or Viacom, or Time Warner--or maybe all of them--it cannot do much more than point people to the stuff they ultimately want to get to. CBS has and continues to be one of those destinations. So we weren't surprised to see that one of the first noteworthy deals struck by the new CBS was one with Google. (In fact, CBS, under the guise of former Viacom unit UPN, struck the first TV content deal with Google for sampling "Everybody Loves Chris," but everybody loves to forget that one.)

Perhaps the most interesting thing about CBS' new vision, is that it has dropped its long-standing prefix-- tele--and we find that extremely telling. It says CBS no longer thinks of itself as a television company, which of course, it increasingly will not be. We have no doubt that TV will remain very much a part of CBS' fiber, even if it's not being televised via fiber optics, beamed across the sky or down from the stratosphere. In a world of seamless, ubiquitous, media-on-demand, distribution becomes virtually irrelevant. And so do the names we call it. We stopped proclaiming exactly which one of the Cs was king a long time ago: content, consumer, conduit. But without vision, you lose another important C-word: context. And without context, you lose judgment. Without judgment you make bad decisions. You make enough bad decisions these days, and you realize another C-word: condemned. So let us commend CBS for having some vision, and for elevating it to the role it was destined to have. And for making vision a part of its new brand.

RIFFIFICATION -- Monday's edition of "Real Media Riffs" mistakenly referred to new Public Broadcasting Service chief Paula Kerger as Paul Kerger. This was not the result of some new "NOVA" science special gone awry, but of the supernova that occasionally explodes inside the Riff's brain when we are hastily trying to make deadlines. Ms. Kerger is, and always has been, Paula.