Release
VIACOM TELEVISION STATIONS DIGITAL MEDIA GROUP PARTNERS WITH SHOPZILLA TO PROVIDE COMPARISON SHOPPING TOOLS TO ITS CBS STATION WEBSITES
Comparison Shopping Among New Features As Part of Viacom's "Always On" Digital Media Initiative
Partnership Announced in Conjunction with the Recent Launch of Philadelphia's Website (kyw.com) with Boston, Sacramento and More to Follow
Previous Launches in Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore and New York Already Featuring Shopzilla's Customized Comparison Shopping Service
The Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group has partnered with Shopzilla to bring comparison shopping to its newly designed CBS station websites as part of the previously announced "Always On" digital media initiative. Shopzilla, the web's most powerful comparison shopping search engine, provides Viacom Television Station's website visitors with a comparison shopping channel that offers the most comprehensive shopping tools for comparing products, prices and online stores. The Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group also intends to provide users with shopping search integrated into general search results using Shopzilla's General Search Integration (GSI) product.
Visitors to each of the newly designed and re-launched websites will now have access to the comparison shopping feature on the local station's homepage. In addition to allowing users to compare prices at over 55,000 stores for over 30 million products, Shopzilla provides industry-leading BizRate Research customer ratings and reviews of products and stores, enabling consumers to find anything, at the best price, from a trustworthy retailer. Further, more consumers are initiating their online shopping experience through aggregator sites, including general search engines and comparison shopping search sites. By also integrating comparison shopping results into CBS station's general search, the stations can provide its users access to Shopzilla's entire inventory of products within a single search application, consistent with this trend in user behavior.
"As the Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group moves to enhance the offerings of its station websites, comparison shopping is a natural addition. We are excited about working with the group to fulfill this mission and about the opportunity to help their website users experience the time- and money-saving benefits of the Shopzilla service," said John Phelps, President of Shopzilla. "We are also pleased with the additional traffic and sales that this relationship will create for our 55,000 retailers."
"Our ability to provide comparison shopping on our local station web pages provides an important service to site visitors as the number of consumers that are online shopping is increasing," said Jonathan Leess, President and General Manager, Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group. "Searching for news and products are two of the most popular online behaviors today. Thus, as more and more consumers do both activities on the web, we want to provide our local users with a high-quality, multi-purpose and integrated general search application."
The group plans to re-launch websites for all of its CBS stations, including cbs4boston.com (Boston) later in September. The station websites in Salt Lake City (kutv.com), Minneapolis (wcco.com), Denver (cbs4denver.com), San Francisco (cbs5.com), Chicago (cbs2chicago.com), Baltimore (wjz.com), New York (cbsnewyork.com), and most recently, Philadelphia (kyw.com) have already launched. In total, 17 CBS stations will re-launch their websites in 2005, followed by UPN stations in 2006.
About The Viacom Television Stations Group
The Viacom Television Stations Group consists of 40 stations, including 21 CBS, 16 UPN and three stations not affiliated with major networks.
About Shopzilla, Inc.
Shopzilla, formerly BizRate.com, is the most powerful and easiest-to-use shopping search site on the Web. With an index of more than 30 million products from more than 55,000 stores, Shopzilla uses ShopRank, a proprietary patent-pending algorithm, to help shoppers instantly find virtually anything on sale from anyone, anywhere on the Web at the best price. Shopzilla also features powerful comparison tools and BizRate consumer reviews of stores and products, the Web's largest and most trusted consumer feedback network. Every week Shopzilla prepares millions of shoppers to make smarter, more confident purchases and sends them directly to the checkout page of thousands of online merchants. Shopzilla also operates the BizRate consumer feedback network with more than 2.5 million members and about 1 million fresh reviews per month. Shopzilla powers shopping search for many of the Web's largest consumer sites including AOL, Lycos and Time Warner's RoadRunner. Founded in 1996, the Los Angeles-based company also operates sites in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Shopzilla is owned by The E.W. Scripps Company (NYSE:SSP), a diverse media concern with interests in national television networks, newspaper publishing, broadcast television stations, TV retailing and licensing and syndication.
For more information, visit www.shopzilla.com, the smarter way to shop.
Press Contacts:
Helen Malani (Shopzilla) 310/903-4280 hmalani@shopzilla.com