After Five Years, Google Decides to Give Up On its TV Ads Product

  • “Google has decided to pull the plug on Google TV Ads, its five-year attempt to convert the cable and broadcast TV industry into selling its available ad inventory on an online ad exchange,” reports Business Insider.
  • The announcement arrives amidst rumors that Google is considering a sale of its Motorola Mobility set-top box unit.
  • Google TV is not affected, and the company continues its Google Fiber efforts, which delivers high-speed Internet access (and possibly pay TV) to early users in Kansas City.
  • “We’ve made the hard decision to close our TV Ads product over the next few months and move the team to other areas at Google,” explains Shishir Mehrotra, VP of product, YouTube/video. “We’ll be doubling down on video solutions for our clients (like YouTube, AdWords for Video, and ad serving tools for Web video publishers). We also see opportunities to help users access Web content on their TV screens, through products like Google TV.”
  • “The death of Google TV Ads is a huge victory for the broadcast and cable networks, who are fighting an epic war against the Web, which threatens to turn traditional TV viewing into the newspaper business of the 21st Century,” suggests the article.
  • “Google TV Ads was the third major attempt to start an online electronic exchange for TV ads, all of which have been rendered extinct by cable and network TV’s refusal to allow any programming inventory to be sold on them.”

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