Mar 18, 2008 11:54 am US/Eastern
WBZ-TV Launches Revenue Sharing Partnership
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
WBZ-TV LAUNCHES FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND REVENUE SHARING PARTNERSHIP WITH LOCAL BLOGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITES
Boston – March 17, 2008 – WBZ-TV today announced the launch of the WBZ-TV Local Ad Network, a first-of-its-kind partnership between a major media company's owned television station and local bloggers and social media Web sites.
WBZ-TV is one of six CBS-owned stations across the country that are now syndicating local news "widgets" to a variety of blogs and hyper-local sites in the communities they serve. Each widget will feature top local headlines and images with links to the video and text stories on the CBS station's site. Included in the widget is a companion banner advertisement.
WBZ-TV will deliver real-time news feeds to the widget, allowing the content on the local partner sites to constantly change and update 24 hours a day.
WBZ-TV now has the ability to offer marketers the ability to broadly and efficiently reach a local audience, while remaining attached to the WBZ-TV brand and content.
In exchange for publishing the WBZ-TV local news widgets, owners of the local sites will receive a portion of the advertising revenue generated by WBZ-TV, which will be responsible for selling the ad inside each widget.
Local sites that have already become members of the WBZ-TV Local Ad Network include http://redsoxnation.net/ and http://www.bostonmusicspotlight.com/
The recruitment and management of local blogs and social media sites that will form the core of the WBZ-TV Local Ad Network is being administered by SyndiGO, a new division of Seevast Corp., a leading provider of advertising networks and network enabling services. For more information please visit https://pvn.pulse360.com/pvn/verticals/cbs-boston/.
The WBZ-TV Local Ad Network already has received support from major advertisers such as Liberty Mutual Insurance.
"The CBS Local Ad Network again positions WBZ-TV and our other stations across the country at the forefront of an unprecedented locally focused venture," said Jonathan Leess, President and General Manager, CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group. "After first setting the standard for local news coverage online, our stations now lead the effort to engage other local sites – and we invite them to share in the revenue. The CBS Local Ad Network also opens up exciting new avenues for our advertising partners to efficiently extend their reach to valued local audiences while associating themselves with our CBS brands and content."
The CBS Local Ad Network has also been launched in Dallas/Fort Worth (cbs11tv.com and ktxa.com), San Francisco (cbs5.com), Denver (cbs4denver.com) and Chicago (cbs2chicago.com). The roll out will continue over the next several weeks and also include the CBS-owned stations in New York (wcbstv.com), Los Angeles (cbs2.com and kcal9.com), Philadelphia (cbs3.com), Minneapolis-St. Paul (wcco.com), Miami (cbs4.com), Sacramento (cbs13.com), Pittsburgh (kdka.com) and Baltimore (wjz.com).
WBZ-TV is part of the CBS Television Stations, a division of CBS Corporation.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
