App teams iPhone with NCAA March Madness on CBS

NEW YORK -- March Madness on iPhone is turning out to be a slam-dunk for CBS TV advertisers.

It is one of more than 25,000 apps, which provide the phone with specific added capabilities or services, available for the iPhone (including one for USA TODAY). Advertisers increasingly have become involved, including with apps of their own.

CBS has streamed the games on mobile devices since 2007 on the TV subscription services used by AT&T and Verizon mobile customers. The $15-a-month mobile TV service is through Qualcomm's MediaFLO. This year CBS is providing all the games vs. just 26 last year.

But the iPhone app is the first stand-alone option, and it adds some fun features.

"One of the really cool things you can do is pull up stats, and it shows up as a transparent overlay while the game is on," says Jeff Sellinger, general manager for CBS Mobile.

Advertisers' exposure on the mobile stream has been a free bonus so far, but that could change after this year. Greater mobile distribution should boost the out-of-home audience numbers CBS can tout for advertisers — and put a price tag on.

"As the audience grows on mobile, we'll be in a position to start talking to advertisers about the rest of these numbers, and we can finally quantify them," says Chris Simko, senior vice president of CBS sports sales and marketing. He says it's not really a free ride even now: "People are paying a premium for our audience on broadcast" TV.