CBS And Yahoo partnership

CBS And Yahoo To Announce Partnership Tomorrow Morning

We’ve got confirmation that CBS is going to announce an important partnership with Yahoo tomorrow morning.

While we don’t yet know exactly what it will entail, we are confident that Yahoo will be joining the CBS Audience Network, which distributes CBS content to destinations such as YouTube, AOL, MSN, Joost, Veoh, Fancast, Bebo, and TVGuide. See a longer list of partners here.

The CBS Audience Network launched in August 2007 and streams 70,000+ videos to over 300 partners. More than 190 million streams have been delivered since launch, the most popular of which are highlighted on the network’s own destination site.

Videos are generally delivered with pre-roll advertisements, and revenue is split between CBS and the partner websites. In addition to syndicating to other sites (but, notably, not Hulu), CBS offers video content through its main site and iTunes. The company recently began testing high definition streaming as well.

Yahoo TV already provides content from NBC and FOX (via Hulu), making the addition of CBS a trio of sorts. We hear CBS will cite the inclusion of Yahoo in its network as providing it with an unprecedented 92% US online reach. It also appears that CBS’s collection will be the single largest content contribution to Yahoo TV.

While YouTube joined the CBS Audience Network quite a long time ago, it only offers short clips without any pre-roll advertising. Therefore, it lacks the full-length content found elsewhere in the network, and presumably starting on Yahoo tomorrow. With all the activity on the web surrounding the monetization of full-length content, and the recent departure of its head of monetization, one wonders whether YouTube should start taking long format, professional content more seriously. Or start to lose a bit of its luster to competitors like Yahoo.

(Via TechCrunch.)

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CBS buys CNet

Bits: CNet’s Allure for CBS: Both Are Laggards
So CNet is finally being bought.

In January, I wrote a post called “The Problem With CNet: No One Wants to Buy It.” Every Internet and media company has looked closely at CNet. They are intrigued because it is a leader in its category of tech news and reviews, with some good technology and brands. But it is growing slowly, and its cost base is so high that its profit margins are meager. And the asking price, which hovered between $1 billion and $2 billion, scared off all the potential buyers.

So what is different for CBS, which announced today that it will pay $1.8 billion for CNet?

For one, CBS is also a company with well-known brands and sluggish growth. So CNet adds some luster to CBS, even if it would drag down other theoretical buyers like Yahoo.

Interestingly, on a conference call with investors this morning, CBS said that its own Internet properties — like Sportsline and the Web site for the Grammy Awards — are actually growing faster than CNet is.

CBS, of course, gave the normal synergy talk: The network’s relations with auto, financial services and drug companies will bring new advertisers to CNet, and CNet’s tech advertisers will add customers to CBS properties. CBS can obviously cut some of CNet’s overhead costs. (If the deal goes through, it also cures a big headache for CNet’s management: the agitation for reform from Jana Partners, a hedge fund.)

CNet has been diversifying away from technology into some other areas that may be of use for CBS. It is building its BNet service for small businesses. Intriguingly for CBS, CNet also owns TV.com, which it has been trying to use to create an entertainment and television fan portal. Owning CNet’s News.com domain name might even lead to a revival strategy for the once great CBS News.

Read full Article HERE!

(Via NYT > Technology.)