NBCU, Google TV Ads Sever Partnership

Google-RedCircleSlash

Google TV Ads has taken a big blow, losing marquee NBC Universal cable networks as clients for selling TV ad time. Others might be on the rocks as well.

The deal between Google TV Ads and NBC has been in effect for two years, including inventory for sale on CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen and SyFy, as well as newer niche networks Chiller and Sleuth. In the original deal, Google would sell remnant inventory in weak, hard-to-sell dayparts, such as daytime or overnight inventory.

The story was first reported in Adweek, which noted the two companies had gone their separate ways months ago.

An NBC statement said: "We're not currently contributing inventory into the Google marketplace, but we continue to work with Google on multiple projects involving advanced advertising."

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Mark Piesanen, director of strategic partner development for Google TV Ads, said in a statement: "While, we are no longer offering NBC Universal inventory through Google TV Ads, NBC Universal continues to be a great partner to Google. Both NBC and Google are committed to bringing more relevance to TV viewership and advertising. CNBC is an important partner in the launch of Google TV and we are working together on research studies."

Google still has deals with Dish TV, DirecTV, Bloomberg TV, Hallmark Channel, Ovation and the Tennis Channel. Still, one media-buying executive said other networks have been considering pulling their inventory from Google TV Ads due to weak sales activity. Google executives did not return messages by press time.

The initial promise has been that Google could deliver new TV advertisers -- much in the same way it did with its search and other Internet advertising efforts. Google executives say in reality Google TV Ads has done a lot better. Mike Steib -- director of emerging platforms for Google, the executive in charge of Google TV Ads -- says 70% of advertisers using the system are Fortune 1000-size companies.

Media buyers complain that many traditional TV clients have not been entirely comfortable using Google's auction-based system. Skeptical media sellers have wondered how Google's efforts might conflict with in-house network sales activities, especially when it came to big media clients.

1 comment about "NBCU, Google TV Ads Sever Partnership".
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  1. Dana Todd from SRVR LLC, October 14, 2010 at 12:28 p.m.

    I'm really not surprised. The main group that embraces Google's ridiculously complex ad system is search marketers. SEMs typically do not have access to TV departments in terms of budget or creative, and they're not trained in traditional media planning. And the main buyers of TV time already have legacy systems, trained employees etc - so they'd be resistant to doing things differently just for one vendor. Just seems like a logical conclusion, at least until Google trains some sort of hybrid media planner that can do both. That will be a long way off, I predict. It's hard enough to get print buyers trained in how to manage search ads.

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