Effective this March, CBS (NYSE: CBS) will rebrand College Sports Television (CSTV) as CBS College Sports Network. The move follows last month’s news that CSTV, independent within CBS since it was acquired in late 2005 (the deal closed in january 2006) for $325 million in stock, was losing that status and moving under the aegis of CBS Sports. It also follow the rebranding of earlier acquisition CBSsportsline.com to CBSSports.com. (CBS says the number of users jumped 27 percent in the month following the change.)

The new name, primarily an effort to carry the resonance of CBS to cable (again for anyone who even dimly recalls CBS Cable and Eye on people), will extend across platforms. This is how CBS explains it: “CSTV’s existing lineup of online properties will integrate to produce incremental value to CBS’s online audience.” That includes high-school site MaxPreps.com. Partial translation: those sites currently aren’t included in CBSSports.com traffic; following the transition, they should be. Still not sure how this fits in with CBSSports.com in terms of operations.

-- As part of the changes, CBS Sports will start to develop proprietary programming for the college net, including a nightly news and information show.