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Google Can’t Do Old Media; Pulls the Plug on Radio Ads

Friday, February 13, 2009 , Posted by Linda at 10:20 AM

Google’s plans to extend its AdWords platform to traditional media appears to be going up in smoke as the economy falters. The company has announced that it’s discontinuing its radio advertising program, a business it got into back in 2006 with the acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting. The news follows word that Google would be pulling out of print advertising as well, which was announced less than a month ago.

The project was not all in vain, however. In a blog post, Google writes, “we will use our technology to develop Internet-based solutions that will deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio. We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space.” In other words, a potential competitor to the podcast ad networks, which have experienced plenty of struggles of their own.

As for TV advertising, the last remaining arm of Google’s plans to move into the traditional media, the company claims it’s not going away. They write, “we will continue to invest in our growing TV advertising business, where we can measure audience response and help advertisers understand how effective their ads are.”

Meanwhile, the loss on the dMarc buy probably wasn’t huge by Google standards. The deal for dMarc was initially for $102 million, with incentives that could’ve pushed the total value of the acquisition to more than $1 billion. With the shutdown of Google’s broadcast advertising program, it’s safe to say that those incentives weren’t reached.

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