CBS has become a leader in the mobile space, offering a variety of program content and partnering with MediaFLO to deliver it on a 24/7 basis. The network is also making inroads with mobile advertising, inserting ads in the MediaFLO content and establishing the first carrier deal with Sprint to play video ads. Cyriac Roeding, executive VP of CBS Mobile, the division formed in February, discusses the network’s activity in the mobile space and its strides to develop mobile video advertising.
iSPOT: CBS Mobile was formed in February. What are the main things it has done in the mobile arena since then?
Roeding: CBS mobile has existed for two-and-a-half years, since June 2005, but it was formally announced as a division in February under the name CBS Mobile. We were CBS Wireless before that. Since February, we’ve done a few things. We announced our mobile advertising partnerships with AdMob, Millenial Media and Rhythm New Media. We also announced a deal with Medio Systems for mobile search. We were the first media company to announce deals with them.
iSPOT: What kinds of programming does CBS play in the mobile space now?
Roeding: We have mobile video with most of our primetime shows and day time in the form of video clips. Many have specific material you can’t find on other platforms, a lot of background material that’s only on mobile. We also have long form for some shows available on VOD. VOD on regular cell phone networks is only possible in a limited fashion because of the quality and transmission costs that occur when you use regular cell phone networks. That’s why MediaFLO came into the game. They started a mobile broadcast TV network and we are one of their launch partners. They started a 24/7 mobile television network in March of this year, with full 24-hour broadband programming for mobile. It includes Letterman at lunchtime because that’s when you have primetime on your phone. We started a mobile news group which is also showing up on MediaFLO as well as V CAST with presentation of news relevant to mobile. The user content selection, the way we present it and the timing is different and the anchors are different, too.
iSPOT: How do you insert advertising into this programming and how does it differ from the way the TV network does it?
Roeding: On MediaFLO we can insert advertising today and we are doing it. The trick on MediaFLO is we don’t believe the cell phone is a small TV screen or a small Internet screen. So it’s a medium of its own right and needs to be treated as such. We also believe that whoever is not treating it that way will miss out on an opportunity. That means in relation to your question the ad breaks on mobile TV need to be shorter than regular broadcast TV because you need to hold your phone and watch it while ads are playing; it’s different from sitting on your couch and leaning back. The ad breaks must be shorter and more frequent with a critical mass of clips and it means we have to program it differently. We were one of the few who set up a mobile TV master control room to control the consumer experience and turn it into a mobile experience and program it differently. We’re changing the face of it by adding content like news updates at the top of the hour and we have the Letterman lunch break and an after hour rewind where you can watch Star Trek in the afternoon. We’re changing it and mobile advertising is the next thing we’ll tackle and change the structure of it.
iSPOT: If the advertising can’t be like TV and the web, how do you work with agencies to come up with advertising content that can play in the space?
Roeding: There are two levels. The first is you program it differently with existing commercials so you don’t have a three-minute break for advertising. You just have a one-minute break. You put two :30s in. That’s the first step. The second step is to create different types of ads for mobile which requires an awareness at the agency and client level. That is the next step and it requires a critical mass of users that makes it relevant to produce a different spot for mobile. With the mobile web experience you have the critical mass today when it comes to advertisers. We recently announced mobile page views on the CBS Sports WAP site. We produced 30 million page views in Q3 of ’07, which made it one of the top 10 mobile WAP sites in the U.S. that’s ad supported. That is a critical amount, you can put interactive banners and text ads in it and you’re talking about a scalable model.
iSPOT: Are the advertisers running on CBS Mobile the same as TV or different?
Roeding: Both. There is an overlap that is good from a CBS perspective because we have the relationships with advertisers and they want to go 360 and do package deals. Cross platform integration isn’t only relevant on the content side, it’s relevant on the advertising side. There’s few companies that can offer that. If you think of CBS, don’t just think TV, think outdoor, radio, online and mobile. All these platforms are offered together and integration is key for advertisers. With mobile video, we were the first to announce a deal with any carrier that allows us to put advertising around video. It was the Sprint deal we announced in the spring.
iSPOT: What does the Sprint deal enable you to do?
Roeding: No one else was allowed to do it because carriers didn’t allow it. They have been traditionally careful because consumers get charged for watching video. They were careful about adding ads but everyone is moving in that direction to make content more affordable to consumers by adding advertising. If you make it more affordable, more will use it, it gets more attractive to advertisers and more money is flowing in. If more money is flowing in, it gets more affordable for users, it’s a vertical cycle that’s been kicked off and we want to help drive it.
iSPOT: One of your ad partners is RhythmNewMedia, which focuses on video advertsing. How will you work with them to play mobile video ads?
Roeding: We decided to work with them because we want to experiment not only on platforms with critical masses but new emerging platforms. Mobile web has critical mass but mobile video is just beginning to be relevant. RhythmNewMedia and CBS will be experimenting with targeting ads based on consumer preference and demographics to make it a more robust experience. We’ll work in conjunction with carriers that want to join us or off-decks where we’ll insert the right video ads to the right people.
