Verizon to Beam CBS Clips to Cell Phones

The Eye Network becomes the first to dive into mobile phones, offering clips of Survivor, CSI, and Letterman via Verizon's V Cast video service.

Television network CBS and Verizon Wireless have teamed up to being clips of popular CBS shows like Survivor, CSI, Late Night with David Letterman, and Entertainment Tonight to Verizon’s V Cast video service.

Beginning this month, Verizon V Cast subscribers will begin to receive video news segments from CBS News and Paramount’s Entertainment Tonight (Paramount, like CBS, is a Viacom company), each produced exclusively for mobile phones. Preview clips of CBS’s most popular shows will be available, including the CSI franchise, The Amazing Race, The King of Queens, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and the wizened reality-show Survivor. Verizon and CBS also plan to produce short extras, such as behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, and making-of segments.

The move makes CBS the first major broadcast network to move its programming aggressively into the mobile phone market. Rivals ABC and NBC, conversely, have recently set up online distribution deals with Apple Computer’s iTunes service.

“At the intersection of the mobile phone and the television lies tremendous programming, promotion and brand extension potential,” said Cyriac Roeding, vice president of wireless, CBS Digital Media. “This deal with Verizon Wireless represents a major step for us into mobile entertainment and another point of contact with the consumer to promote our great content brands.”

V Cast is Verizon’s wireless broadband offering, enabling customers to view on-demand video clips and content from leading providers. V Cast runs on Verizon’s expanding EVDO high speed wireless network, currently available to roughly 140 million people in over 170 metropolitan areas in the United States.