• by Wayne Friedman , April 13, 2007

CBS Corp. announced a massive expansion for its TV stable: 10 new digital deals for its programming, plus a new ad-selling network group where it will amass its digital ad inventory.

In theory, the new group, the CBS Interactive Audience Network, will make it easier for advertisers to buy time, and, more importantly, to aggregate advertisers' digital deals into bigger money-making agreements.

New TV digital deals were announced with AOL, Microsoft, CNET Networks, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Brightcove, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh. Previously, CBS had video digital deals with Amazon's UnBox, Apple's iTunes Music Store, and Yahoo.

In many of these digital agreements, a TV network, such as CBS, retains all the ad time. The digital Internet company then gets to participate in a revenue-sharing arrangement--the revenue derived by ad sales. Typically, such arrangements have a revenue split of 90% to the TV network, 10% to the Internet distributor. CBS would not disclose the financial terms of its digital deals.

In a statement, Leslie Moonves, president/CEO of CBS Corp., said: "Each of these partners offers value to our audience and our advertisers, which can now come to CBS not only for the most watched network on television, but for the most widely distributed professional content online."

Media executives say the new digital ad selling group will serve marketers and consumers well, especially since many digital platforms don't have big-brand identities.

"Marketers can confuse video platforms with content brands," says Alan Schulman, chief creative officer of Brand New World, a new media creative ad agency. "Inventory is being dis-intermediated all over the place." More than ever, analysts point out that content is king. Consumers don't really know the names of Brightcove and Bebo, but they do know the brand names "Survivor" and "CSI."

"How can brand marketers distinguish between one platform and another?" asks Schulman. "There is so much hype around these businesses, how can you tell one from another? This is really just about technology."

Lyle Schwartz, senior vice president, director of media research for Mediaedge: cia, added: "It helps coordinate massive amounts of [digital] advertising. It is nice to see CBS step up and lead. It would be hard to go to those individual businesses for billing or whatever. It's nice to have it under one umbrella."