Tiffany Turns to Mobile TV

Tiffany Turns to Mobile TV by Roxanne McDonald

Surveys were taken, MP3s were reviewed, and a new division was launched, piloted by Cyriac Roeding, Executive Vice President of CBS Mobile

Way back in December of 2005, CBS was concluding that while at that time there were 5 million subscribers to mobile services, there would be no threat to traditional television distribution should CBS decide to go mobile.

Surveys showed how at that time, 42 percent of 3,781 people owned an MP3 player (John Cosoli, Media Week), but how only 7 percent of the nearly 4,000 would “definitely or [be] very likely to purchase a mobile phone/MP3 with video capabilities for themselves….”

By February of 2007, however, wireless division head Cyriac Roeding (what a great TV name!) had been named Executive Vice President of CBS Mobile and was, under the leadership of Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, forming teams

and partners and possibilities.
Today, you can go to CBS MOBILE and “Let Your Phone Out” with everything from Hot Mobile Packs like Dave TV, ET to Go, and CBS Sportsline to Go to Exclusive Collections such as Survivor Wallpaper, CSI New York, and Star Trek.

Other CBS Mobile features include, of course, Fierce Wallpapers, Ringtones & Voicetones, Fun Mobile Videos, Text Fun and Games, and, of course, music.

I guess the people of 2005 changed their minds, and have come around to continue a legacy of support for one of the oldest, finest, and best broadcasting stations (with ABC and NBC) in existence.

This makes sense, for while I recall watching this one of three channels when I was a kid, sitting alongside my grandfather as he did his nightly crossword puzzle and watched CBS News, I also recall how their airing of the first moon landing brought the technology old timers were so unfamiliar with they would have balked at the notion of computers and cell phones to begin with. But that generation has also changed its mind(s), and pcs and mp3s are almost as much old news, really, as the moon-landing space technology was twenty years back.

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CBS Thrilled with YouTube Partnership

CBS Thrilled with YouTube Partnership by Roxanne McDonald

As movie and TV moguls scramble for hot cyberspace and TV joint ventures, CBS is proud to have joined in collaboration with the popular YouTube.

Just ask CBS and Viacom King Sumner Redstone: Viacom’s online presence was unremarkable, at best; the new MTV site Overdrive was a bust; and missing the opportunity to buy MySpace (which, bought by Rupert Murdock and New Corp., gets Google advertising for a cool 9 mill, according to Bryan Burrough of Vanity Fair) would have made anyone in big business appreciate the lucrative nature of television and internet business mergers.

Or, as according to Michael Arrington of Techcrunch, just ask CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith how damned good it feels to make the right decision, have the right timing, and catch a partnership with the right online biz:

As Arrington reports,

a recent press release reveals the utter pleasure and pride Pres. Smith feels about the CBS Interactive partnership with YouTube—one that within its first two months was seeing huge numbers: 29.2 million page views “since October 18,” or “an average of 857,000 views per day.”

Not only do the numbers turn Smith on, but the prospects of “many exciting further developments,” along with what CBS believes is causational increases in TV ratings, make the president of one of the biggest networks of the industry beam with delight and pride.

The biggest challenge, now, implies Arrington, is to capitalize further with more [successful] online developments…before “offline TV dies.”

Hey, now, wait a minute: if this offline TV fanatic has her way, that won’t be for a long, long time.