At a CTIA keynote, Philippe Dauman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Viacom unveiled a series of partnerships and programming move related to mobile content and mobile advertising. Specifically, Viacom’s MTV Networks announced the debut of several new mobile sites and will for the first time sell advertising across its mobile portfolio.

The new mobile WAP sites will include:

• MTV offering news updates, show information and scoops, and a featured artist section;
• VH1 featuring celebrity photo flipbooks, VH1 News commentary, music and artist features and the VH1 and “Best Week Ever” blogs;
• COMEDY CENTRAL with a “Joke of the Day,” a “What’s Your Sign” horoscope and a section dedicated to the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series “South Park.”
• In addition, MTVN’s CMT, Logo, Nickelodeon, Spike TV, and TV Land will be launching mobile websites beginning in the second quarter of 2007.

MTV also announced that it will now run advertising on its mobile properties. Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO, MTVN said “our strategy is to provide our audiences with compelling entertainment experiences, and by introducing mobile advertising, we’re offering our advertisers a closer connection with our audiences across platforms.”

Further, MTV announced the first major brands that have signed on to advertise across the MTV range of mobile offerings. Pepsi-Cola North America and Intel Corporation have signed on as charter sponsors, and will feature prominently on the MTN and Comedy Central mobile TV channels as well as the just announced MTV WAP sites.

“As we continue to evolve our advertising, we see this as a great opportunity to reach our on-the-go consumers in an engaging environment,” said Cie Nicholson, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Pepsi-Cola North America.

Viacom’s Dauman commented that the company presently delivers 1 million video streams to cell phone handsets on a monthly basis, adding that: “We believe advertising can work on the wireless platform. Indeed we view it as a critical medium.” He added “in addition to creating a new revenue stream for our company – which will help fuel further content innovation and growth on wireless – mobile advertising allows our marketing partners to engage with audiences in an exciting, ground-breaking way.”

MTV press release.

Viacom press release.