The CBS-TV owned and operated stations are making a pitch to local bloggers and hyperlocal sites to add value to their sites with various news headline and video widgets, and take a share of ad revenues.

The CBS effort to land bloggers and find a way to compensate them is part of a growing trend among traditional media sites. Several newspapers and social sites are also looking at ways of incorporating (and paying) bloggers.

Mostly, the CBS package is designed to extend CBS’ local (and vertical) reach on the Web. That is a key thing for CBS and other local sites that don’t have enough premium inventory to go around, but still tend to under-perform on the Web due to lower online rates.

The CBS deal has been put together by SyndiGO, an arm of Seevast — an ad services holding company that is a direct descendant of Kanoodle. SyndiGO already has local deals in place in various markets with AT&T, Honda dealers and Liberty Mutual Insurance. Examples of participating bloggers include Urban Spoon, The Landry Hat and David Eisenthal.

Seevast exec Jaan Janes (who I consulted for when he was with NFL.com), says the new network takes all the pain out of putting ads on blogger sites. Built on Doubleclick’s backbone, the network recruits the sites, automates the service and provides customer service. It also screens blogs and other sites for suitable content — an important consideration for TV stations.

Another important thing about SyndiGO is it takes care of all payments, and provides a much higher CPM than the networks, according to Janes. He estimates the CPMs will climb above 50 cents –far higher than small local sites would receive from national ad networks such as Advertising.com, Blue Lithium and ValueClick. These sell remnant advertising for CPMs as low as 2 cents.

In our estimation, some sites are likely to get pretty good money from this that may go beyond subsistence. The vast majority of local sites, however, receive little traffic and would get less than $100 a month.

Janes adds that Martha Stewart has gone the same home grown route for Martha’s Circle (although that was done by Adify, a competing ad service). Looking forward, he expects to be working with a wide range of vertical sites in addition to local sites. He is specifically focusing on health, financial services and travel.

Former AOL President and MTV founder Bob Pittman has lately focused on investments as head of the Pilot Group (he is a pilot). In an interview with broadband consultant Will Richmond’s VideoNuze on the eve of the NATPE show in Las Vegas, Pittman says he is bullish on small market TV stations — and their online prospects.

“In small markets, newspapers and Yellow Pages are getting wildly disproportionate share of the revenue, so we think there’s a great growth opportunity,” says Pittman. “In smaller markets the station’s coverage area nicely matches the advertiser’s reach goals. It’s also a fantastic free cash flow business.”

Online, Pittman’s stations are setting up “what are in essence ‘newspapers online.’ In our smaller markets, we’re not competing with Google or MSN, so we can get large local audiences, which allow us to better serve our advertisers.” But Pittman says there is only limited opportunity with such efforts. “I don’t think broadband is competitive with TV. Putting TV shows on the Internet is nice, but you’re talking about small audiences.”

What keeps a TV station working with a Web enabler after it has earned enough money to do it itself? That’s a question for all the leading Web enablers — WorldNow, Internet Broadcasting Systems and Broadcast Interactive Media. All three companies have pretty much responded the same way: feed in national advertisers, leverage portal relationships with vertical players and provide sales consultation at the local level.

Internet Broadcasting Systems, which is owned by a consortium of station groups, has responded to the challenges by bringing in an infusion of new management from the AOL Local and Search team (between Autobytel and IB, are there any former AOL Local/Search people left?) In June, IB recruited AOL exec David Lebow as CEO. In turn, he brought in Arul Sundaram as VP of business development.

Sundaram says the similarities AOL and IB have as media companies are pretty clear. The difference is that AOL was always sold out with its limited inventory. “IB has inventory in spades,” he says. With the aggregated traffic from its 70 TV station Web sites – 17 million to 20 million unique visitors — “IB is making more than all of AOL Local and City Guide.”

Sundaram doesn’t see that the consortium of owners is necessarily going to pool its resources, create a TV equivalent of a Classified Ventures and aggressively target various verticals. Instead, the vendor’s role is seen as “running the national ad network, enabling local ad sales and generating inventory. Those are the assets this company has.”

“It is a good spot to be in right now. Regional and large local players are coming online,” he says. There really is a significant opportunity around geotargeted. The company’s sales have increased at 3x the rate of overall advertising (of course, TV stations are starting from a lower base).

Key drivers of the growth include custom sponsorship packages, video advertising, standard IAB ads and TV/Web convergence packages. The national sales are a mixture of a pure sale among the 70 stations, which include all the top 20 markets. Other national efforts include integration with Centro’s sales packages, which tend to include a mix of media channels.

Sundaram sees additional opportunities in developing mix and match content. “Because we manage the sites, we do a lot of custom stuff.” One example he cites is the addition of recipe tips from The Food Network for a food advertiser.

Another advantage IB brings to the table is established relationships with verticals such as Monster. “That brings in classified ad dollars” that the stations wouldn’t otherwise see, he says. The vendor has recently partnered with Pluck’s SiteLife Social Media site to leverage user-generated content as well.

The numbers are looking very, very good for the Interactive Local Media:07 conference in L.A. Nov. 28-30. Internally, we think this one is a record breaker. Register and book the hotel while you can. The latter tends to sell out.

In recent weeks, we’ve been putting the final touches on the program. For instance, we’ve added Facebook’s Chamath Palihapitiya, who is VP of product marketing. Here’s a snippet about Chamath from Fast Company’s cover story this month:

“Palihapitiya, 31, is tall and whippet thin, with elegant manners and a ready smile. A former electrical engineer, born in Sri Lanka and raised in Canada, he ran AOL’s instant-message group, then jumped to the venture fund Mayfield. He is part Sand Hill Roadster and part freethinker.”

Other notable adds include ShopLocal CMO Bob Armour, Scott Ferris from Microsoft’s Atlas division, LA Times.com’s Robertson Barrett, and City Voter’s Josh Walker. There is also a brand-new Local Mobile panel, featuring Gary Roshak, who has migrated from Marchex to Yahoo!, Jeff Torgerson at InfoSpace, and Collin Holmes at V-Enable.

Also, take a look at the SES side of the show. Google Local head Eric Stein, Zorik Gordon from Reach Local, and Topix head Chris Tolles are just some of the great execs SES is bringing in. Kevin Heisler and Kevin Newcomb are moderating the SES panels.

The Kelsey Group also has its LinkedIn networking set up for the show. We’ve got dozens participating already. Once you register, you should sign in for that, too (even if you haven’t used LinkedIn for a while). See you in L.A.?

Splitting up a company’s assets is quite an exercise. You try to maximize synergies, position for the future, and get buy-in from Wall Street and the IRS.

At the beginning of October, that’s what Belo did. As I reported, Belo put its newspapers with its Internet properties. And its TV stations were put in a different pot.

This week, it is E.W. Scripps’ turn. Unlike Belo, Scripps is matching its Internet properties with its cable network holdings – a “new media” split that will be called Scripps Network Interactive. Its newspapers, TV stations and United Features cartoon syndication divisions are going in the other pot.

The differences between Scripps and Belo are clear enough: Scripps has invested heavily in online shopping verticals (Shopzilla and uSwitch), and its cable networks (HGTV, Food Network, DIY Network). The Belo Internet properties, on the other hand, are mostly related to the newspapers (and to the TV stations).

For sure, Scripps has newspaper Web sites too. They are connected at the hip to such titles as the Rocky Mountain News, the Knoxville News-Sentinel and the Ventura County Star. It isn’t clear what is happening to them. My guess is that they’ll actually stay as sub-units of the papers.

A couple of years ago, one imagined that Shopzilla was going to bring Scripps’ newspapers into the world of connecting buyers and sellers. That would have been a mighty (and extremely challenging) effort. But at Scripps, there was never a serious attempt to pull that off.  So, what is the next multimedia conglomerate to split up? And how will they line up?

Name the three countries that ZenithOptimedia predicts will be the fastest-growing ad markets by percentage growth from 2006 to 2009. Not even your ad agency friends are likely to get that question right.

I have always taken umbrage with any company that forecasts global advertising expenditures by medium and leaves out Yellow Pages. However, this October report, according to a research brief from The Center for Media Research, leads with the headline, “Olympics, Online Video and Local Search to Drive Global Ad Spending.” What that means is that television will increase its worldwide market share to more than 38 percent despite losing share in both North America and Western Europe.

While television will see the largest growth in terms of absolute dollars, the largest percent will be in Internet advertising, which will jump from $19 billion in 2005 to more than $48 billion by 2009. While the brief doesn’t provide details of the growth, it does say, “Online video and local search are the new, fast-growing segments,” (driving 30 percent of the Internet ad growth).

It is meaningful that local search is recognized as a category of Internet advertising and that ZenithOptimedia has chosen to single it out as a growth business. It barely existed just a few years ago.

Because of the economic conditions in the United States, U.S. ad spending growth is expected to be only 2.5 percent. Still we are better off than Serbia, Qatar and Kazakhstan.

Big names, interesting people, compelling research. Forgive the commercial message here, but we’re set to deliver the goods at The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media 2007 (ILM:07), Nov. 28-30 in L.A.

I think there’s something for everyone. And this year, as most of you know, we’ve partnered with Search Engine Strategies for a series of practical “build it” local search sessions. The SES portion of the event features great execs like Chris Tolles, who runs Topix; Zorik Gordon, who runs Reach Local; Brad Geddes from Local Launch; and Court Cunningham from Yodle … SES is a great partner.

If you haven’t checked the ILM:07 landing page for a couple of weeks, you are going to be bowled over by all the great additions. Just today, Google Maps visionary John Hanke confirmed as a keynote. It’s kind of fun when you can look up a keynoter on Wikipedia. We’re also adding Marchex CEO Russ Horowitz to a session that features Bill Day, the company’s chief media officer (and cofounder of About.com).

Some other recent “adds” include:

• Jay Herratti, who runs Citysearch, and is being interviewed back-to-back with Jennifer Dulski, who runs Yahoo! Marketplace;

• Jorrit Van der Meulen from Zillow, who is partnered on a cutting-edge real estate session with NCI head Dan McCarthy and Homethinking’s Niki Scevak;

• Jeff Hughes, head of online advertising for General Motors, who is speaking about localizing national advertising with Centro’s Shawn Riegsecker and Consorte Media’s Alicia Morga;

• Mark Gorenberg at Hummer Winblad, who is partnered on the Local Investment panel with Kara Nortman from IAC/InterActiveCorp and Nick Veronis from Veronis Suhler Stevenson … (hey, this is a pretty smart panel);

• Robyn Rose, who’s building the LocalSearch.com platform for Idearc. She is on an all-star “convergence” panel with Candice Faktor from Toronto.com; Elaine Kunda from ZipLocal; and Malcolm “Premier Guide” Lewis at Local.com;

• Mike Orren from Pegasus News, who will talk about building TV station community sites, as will CityVoter’s Josh Walker;

• Chris Wagner from NeuLion, who will show us the company’s IPTV system for local sports teams;

• Jonathan Weber, of Industry Standard fame, whose NewWest is leveraging the Web to promote and cover the regional development of the Rockies.

All these speakers are being added to the great execs who we announced a couple of weeks ago. Top execs like RHDi’s Jake Winebaum; Autobytel’s Jim Riesenbach; Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis; TMP Directional Marketing’s Stuart McKelvey; Yahoo! Search Marketing’s Dave Schwartz; comScore’s Brian Jurutka; Judy’s Book’s Chris DeVore; Krillion’s Joel Toledano; Retrevo’s David Galvan; and Shopping.com’s Josh Wetzel.

In the next week or so, we’ll be adding a couple of real surprises as speakers (we hope); as well as a great Local Mobile panel, which takes its lead from Matt Booth’s Mobile Forecast.

(Tip: If you plan to come, sign up now for a cheaper rate, and book your flights and hotel ASAP. It takes place one week after Thanksgiving, which is a busy time. It is a NICE time to be in L.A. But get situated, OK?)

While I am in Reston, VA, attending Kelsey’s Directory Driven Commerce conference, I thought it would be a good time to start talking about our next show, which I am co-producing: Interactive Local Media 2007. The show is being done in tandem with SES Local, takes place Nov. 28-30, and is at the Los Angeles Hyatt Regency Century Plaza — a nice location with a very good pool and a lot of local history (movie stars, Reagan, Nixon, all that).

Kelsey started doing this show in 1997; I started co-producing it in 1998, and we are proud of the legacy. It is typically the biggest local show in the industry, with the best networking, the best speakers and the best demos. My goal is for every participant to get an inspiring, 360-degree perspective on local online, mobile and video issues.

We’re just getting started confirming our guest list of 50+ speakers. Watch this space for updates. But here’s who we have to date (in alpha):

• Jason Calacanis, CEO, Mahalo

• Bill Day, Chief Media Officer, Marchex

• Chris DeVore, Cofounder and COO, Judy’s Book

• Jennifer Dulski , GM, Yahoo! Local

• David Galvan, VP, Retrevo

• Elaine Kunda, President and CEO, ZipLocal

• Malcolm Lewis, VP, Local.com

• Stuart McKelvey, CEO, TMP Directional Media

• Alicia Morga, Chairman and CEO, Consorte Media

• Daniel McCarthy, Chairman and CEO, NCI

• Mike Orren, President, Pegasus News

• Shawn Riegsecker, Chairman and CEO, Centro

• Jim Riesenbach, President and CEO, Autobytel

• Niki Scevak, President, Homethinking

• Joel Toledano, Cofounder and CEO, Krillion

• Nick Veronis, Managing Director, Veronis Suhler Stevenson

• Jake Winebaum, President, RHDi; CEO, Business.com

We’re putting the Kelsey analysts up front with the new mobile forecasts and other research. There’s a lot of mobile at this thing.

It must be tough running online newspaper sites right now. After many years of strong annual growth in the 30 percent range, online revs are beginning to plateau. And in most markets, the rest of the ship has begun to go down, or at least, taken on water.

If you were running the online operations for Seattle Times Co., and were given the chance to run the Internet ops for a TV station group that includes a premier station in town, would you go? TV station revenues on the Web, of course, are still in a heavy growth stage.

Nancy Bruner is doing just that. She’s run The Seattle Times sites for 10 years, where she and her talented team (including Patricia Lee Smith) launched NWSource, a groundbreaking newspaper shopping site. But now she’s joining Fisher Interactive at the end of the month. Bruner previously was at US West Interactive.

At Fisher, she’ll get to work with Pegasus News founder and President Mike Orren. Pegasus, the hyper-local city guide and news site in Dallas, was acquired by Fisher a couple of months ago. It is likely to undergo further development in Dallas while being integrated into some of Fisher’s 12 TV station sites.

With the probable exception of Yelp, standalone review sites haven’t figured out a way to make money. In the past year, Insider Pages was sold off to Citysearch, and Judy’s Book, famously, changed its model to coupons.

So why would Josh Walker, Forrester’s former head of consumer research, dive into the game with both feet? Walker’s CityVoter, which raised an initial round of $1.1 million from two Boston-area funders, has been in operation since 2005, and now has 25 employees.

I talked with Walker last week about where he’s going with this. During our conversation, Walker made it clear that he’s not interested in reliving the past.

The “best of” approach, pioneered by city magazines, differentiates the site from the broader Yellow Pages approach of the others (although they also have “best of” lists). Walker believes it will give the site a breadth of reviews, rather than the typical focus on restaurants, bars and entertainment. “Are there enough passionate people to ‘Yelp’ about florists and autos shops?” he asks.

Walker’s TV station-centric model is geared on viral growth from the stations promotional efforts, which will get users to go to their Web sites to “vote” on favorite businesses. Stations are expected to provide between 100 and 300 spots during launch periods.

Secondarily, Walker expects the site to pick up traction from small-business advertisers, which will co-promote themselves and the site by displaying CityVoter signs and handing out free CityVoter-branded business cards.

“Local TV stations need a way to engage local businesses,” he says. “It is the first time we give local TV stations a reason to call the salon.” Walker acknowledges, however, that TV stations may have been cultural misfit with online services in the past, focused on back-slapping auto dealers that accounted for about a third of all sales – or more.

But he believes that the TV station business, recently very depressed, is now interested in pursuing a new climate, with younger, hungrier salespeople. And lower commissions too. All these are necessary components for Web sales. “They’re needing to ramp down from $250k accounts to $50k accounts,” he says.

The key, Walker believes, is that the site will make the small business feel special and enfranchised, rather than just being an advertiser. Along these lines, special features include the various “best of” contests, and collateral such as e-coupons and inclusion in e-newsletters, and integration with YouTube videos.

The site has also put together a package for small-business owners to get them up and going. Partners for the package include VistaPrint for printing, Constant Contact for e-mail and VoiceStar for call tracking.

At this point, the lineup of stations, which get local exclusivity, is getting real. CityVoter now has nine stations, 120,000 registered users and 410,000 votes. It is expecting to launch 25 more stations before the year is out. More important, CityVoter has developed relationships with key station groups – rather than landing deals one station at a time.

Currently, the site has won commitments from Fox to launch 18 stations, Hearst-Argyle to launch 14 stations, McGraw-Hill to launch four stations; CBS to launch two stations, and one station each from Washington Post-Newsweek and Gannett.