CBS Buys In-Store Video Distributor SignStorey

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

The CBS Eye will be opening in a grocery store near you.

CBS said it will pay $71.5 million for SignStorey, which distributes satellite-delivered video programming to more than 1,400 retail chains, including ShopRite, Price Chopper and SuperValu.

The company will be renamed CBS Outernet when the deal closes, which the companies expect to be by the end of the fourth quarter.

CBS has used SignStorey to promote its fall TV season since 2006, and it apparently liked what it saw.

“CBS Outernet will offer our advertisers a tremendous, broad new platform to reach consumers out of their homes,” said CBS CEO Leslie Moonves in announcing the purchase.

CBS already has deals with airlines, cruise lines, malls, hair salons, automotive service waiting rooms and hotels for its programming as part of a strategy it has dubbed "outernet," now being formalized in the new name for SignStorey.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.