• Adweek, Tuesday, August 26, 2008 9 AM

Google may be intimidating to the TV industry, but a closer look shows Google's TV ad program is reaching only 14 million households through limited deals with Dish Network and a small cable company.

The Web giant measures when people turn the channel during ads; for now, it is only using that data to inform advertisers of ad performance. Ford, for example, could see how many people changed channels during its ad on ESPN compared with similar spots and could measure reaction over time to determine when its creative is worn out.

Eventually, this metric will be used to determine which ads to show, much the way Google chooses online ads. But a large, mostly unspoken hurdle is that agencies and networks are afraid of working with Google for fear the company will wipe out their jobs.

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