Good for CBS Interactive

I applaud CBS Interactive for taking a stand and dropping banner ad networks in lieu of internal sales. What this says is that CBS's formidable Web properties have value. Other sites like ESPN, Weather.com, Martha Stewart, and Gawker had taken similar stances.

At a time when media companies are looking under the couch cushions for extra money, I think this is a good move for the industry. With traditional media advertising continuing its slide, online advertising is still getting only around ten digital cents on the analog dollar. This has to cease if the industry is to survive. It's not like these properties are any less valuable -- they're just perceived that way. Let's face it, what's more valuable to an advertiser, their audience seeing a static quarter-page ad in the back of Men's Health or seeing a non-skippable video ad on TV.com?

The ad networks are basically just two-bit brokers who pair anyone with $.0001 with premiere online content. But, it is a buyer's market. I hope that other Web publishers follow suit to raise the perceived value of these Web properties, because it is one of the keys to their survival.