CBS’s New Mobile Efforts

CBS has launched some new mobile efforts… There’s a new website of mobile content, CBS Mobile Store, which will offer exclusive mobile content including games as well as ringtones, voicetones and walllpapers based on CBS programs — the various CSI’s were mentioned along with Survivor, Star Trek, Beverly Hills 90210 and The Brady Bunch…all the big shows. There’ll also be live wallpapers, which will feature scenes from CBS reality shows within hours of those scenes being broadcast, and Dave TV, which will feature highlights of the previous nights David Letterman show. The service is offered on both a pay-per-download and a subscription basis, although the cost wasn’t given in the release. A quick look on the site shows a wallpaper going for 99c, and Dave TV going for a $4.99 per month subscription, which sounds like average mobile content pricing.
CBS has also launched a couple of new WAP sites. CBS Sportsline has real-time scores and the ability to control fantasy sports teams from the mobile phone, while CBS News offers direct access to stories and images of near real-time breaking news events. These sites are ad-supported and free to users…the release says they’re available on “most” US carriers, but it’s unclear if some deal has been struck so users won’t pay data charges. It looks like CBS will be going after mobile pretty heavily, and seem to be going with the idea of reaching as many customers and possible rather than signing exclusive deals, which is probably a better way to go. It will be interesting to see the result of this mobile play vs ESPN’s effort.
Related stories:
CBS Interactive Creates Mobile Division With Cyriac Roeding As EVP
@Napte Mobile++: The Future Of Video Content According To Cyriac Roeding, CBS

Comments have been disabled for this post