CBS music label inks deal with Apple

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, CBS has launched, or more correctly relaunched, their long-forgotten CBS Records label. They've signed a deal with Apple Computer to sell music, videos and "other content" at iTunes.

CBS Records, in its first life, was home to a pretty amazing stable of artists, including Frank Sinatra, Billie Holliday, Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith. It was sold to Sony for a couple of billion dollars almost twenty years ago. Since then, "CBS Records" essentially ceased to exist.

So why the renewed interest in music? CBS apparently wants to leverage their TV shows as marketing tools for the music industry. Nothing creates buzz quite so quickly or quite so well as a TV show promoting a particular artist or single.