Financial Podcast Purchased By CBS News For $5 Million

Who likes video podcasts? Okay, scratch that. Who doesn’t like video podcasts? Any hands? No? Good.

One such production, dubbed WallStrip, a pint-sized production specializing in taking the fear out of finance and making it fun for all, is now making the leap from its independent status on the World Wide Web to live under the dominion of CBS News. What made the podcast’s producers decide to sell? Five million dollars did.

Everyone loves podcasts. Everyone. Sure, there’s always the few who say they couldn’t care less about them, but they like. They like. Who wouldn’t? They’re irresistible little bites of downloadable content strewn across a vast number of genres. Nothing really much better than that, eh? Want to watch the unpretentious tackle the high world of the vine? Visit Wine Library TV. There, host Gary Vaynerchuk does a fine job of breaking the cellar down to what’s good and what’s not. A fun watch, even if you’re heavy on the hops and light on the grapes. How about tech news? Diggnation is a good choice, as is DL.TV. Watch Wall Street? Don’t understand it too well? No worries. Lindsay Campbell, the host of WallStrip, will help you sort it out in five minutes or less. Okay, maybe you won’t learn much in such short spans of time, but you’ve admit they make some boring frickin’ stuff at least a little entertaining.

There’s definite value to WallStrip. It wouldn’t necessarily succeed on television, per se, but it’s worth something in the media space. CBS thinks it’s worth $5 million. More precisely, the company thinks WallStrip’s host is worth that amount. Which isn’t small, when you really think about it. According to CBS, the anchor of network’s evening news is given a salary of $15 million, and Ms. Couric isn’t exactly boosting ratings at the moment.

There’s no word on what CBS intends to do with WallStrip’s assets. Will they keep the name? Rebrand? Toss the podcast’s original crew and have Ms Campbell (Lindsay) delivered a prepared comment on the market every day? That wouldn’t fly with CBS News viewers. They want credibility they can trust. (Most of the time.)

If CBS wants to make WallStrip into something that could turn a profit, it will change little about it. Maybe alter the intro a bit, add some new lines for the host to cycle through (“all time high” is reaching its expiration date), and extend the end-of-show outtakes a touch. Then it will be ready for “mainstream” release. (Air quotes heavily emphasized.)