(19 October 2006 12:55 pm)

MUMBAI: CBS Television Stations, a division of CBS Corporation, and Yahoo! Inc. have announced an exclusive video syndication agreement in which local news video from 16 of CBS’s owned stations will be made available on Yahoo! to the Internet’s largest news audience.

The relationship, which begins tomorrow, marks the first video agreement between a network-owned television station group and an Internet news provider. CBS and Yahoo will share revenue from advertising sold adjacent to CBS Stations’ content on the site, informs an official release.

“Local news has become one of the most important pieces of a user’s online news experience, and this agreement brings some of the best local TV journalism to the millions of Yahoo! News users,” says Yahoo! Media Group head of news and information Scott Moore. “One of our key priorities is to offer our users relevant and high-quality local news in each market, and with CBS we’ve found a partner that deeply understands the issues most important to the communities they cover.”

"This is the first of its kind for a local TV station group -- our local TV station video will now be available to millions of Yahoo! News' users everyday, providing them with our CBS Station's extraordinary local news coverage from every one of our markets," said Jonathan Leess, President, CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group. "Finding new platforms to distribute and monetize our industry-leading content has always been a core strategic initiative of our company, and this deal accomplishes both."

Yahoo! will highlight the local video to users who select a city or zip code within a CBS owned station market. The video will be station-branded and can be found on the Yahoo! homepage and throughout Yahoo! News. On Yahoo!’s local news pages, video will also include links to the station’s website where users can view additional local video and stories.