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Google TV: Web Meets TV. TV Says Get Off My Lawn!

posted on October 22, 2010


Google has never had much luck breaking into the TV business. Its latest foray, Google TV, could end up being a non-starter as well.

It’s hardly a big secret that TV networks and Google haven’t exactly seen eye-to-eye, but the battlefield has typically been within your web browser. In other words, Google’s turf.

Now that Google is taking the battle to your actual television set, the big networks are fighting back. In fact, they’re blocking you from using Google TV to access their content.

So, what’s actually going on here?

Well, Google TV–in all of its flavors–allows you to watch video content posted on the web, on your TV. It’s basically a browser for your TV set. In theory, that means any videos on the web, should be available on Google TV.

Except some of the biggest broadcasting companies are scared of Google muscling in on their turf…

…Walt Disney Co and NBC Universal confirmed on Thursday that the companies blocked access to the broadcast TV shows available on their websites from Google TV. Disney owns ABC network and cable TV business ESPN.

News Corp’s Fox is also considering blocking access to shows on its website…CBS has blocked access to full-length episodes of their programs…

So why are they blocking Google TV? Well, it’s not because Google is doing anything underhand–the search giant leaves intact any advertising used by the networks. To understand why Google TV is being blocked, you have to look at the bigger picture.

If Google TV is a success, then we’ll use our TVs to watch web content. Movies, shows, and videos that have advertising that generates much less revenue than a 30 second TV commercial. If Google TV catches on, advertisers might want–gasp!–lower ad rates, better targeting, and more reporting on the effectiveness of their ads!

Now you see the problem the networks have with Google TV.

This is going to be an interesting battle, because Google is playing “on the road” and doesn’t have the support of the home crowd or in-conference officials. Its record “on the road” is hardly impressive, so you might want to sit on the sidelines and watch this play out before shelling out the dollars for Google TV.

While we’re on that subject. Maybe the TV networks were a little premature in blocking Google TV. Judging by Danny Sullivan’s experience, setting up Google TV is a pain in the butt and just getting the latest episode of CSI to play, might put the average couch-potato off the idea altogether.


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  • http://www.looktotheright.com Noah

    Any Totals on sales volume so far?

    • http://www.marketingpilgrim.com Andy Beal

      Not that I’ve seen.

  • http://www.arcanasphere.com AndrewJ

    Insanity.

    It made sense to someone to alienate their legitimate clients for using the wrong television set? Oh well.

    Some of their clients will be alienated.

    Some of them will lose respect as they hook their PCs or HD video game systems (complete with web browsers and downloadable channels) into those very same televisions to watch the programming that way. Good going, there.

    Some of them will turn to illegal sites instead.

    I don’t even like tv and rarely watch the idiot box unless I’m trying to fall asleep. Apparently, working on the other side of the screen makes you even dumber than mindlessly staring into it from your couch.

  • http://www.nuttakorn.net Nuttakorn

    From my opinion, Google TV is quite huge benefits to advertisers to reach the target audience as we know what we interest and user journeys what they visits, as Google will able to provide the good insight from the analytic dashboard (expected to see the integrated marketing campaign report soon). From the media perspective, publisher or content-owner would like to keep their audience stay with them for better negotiation.

  • http://www.butterknife-marketing.com Avi Kaye

    @ AndrewJ – Internet TV has been around for ages. Google isn’t doing anything new. From what I understand, it is basically a streamer (like PopCorn, or Xtreamer) with built-in web access. And Internet TV hasn’t taken off – people still like to keep their web and their TV separate.

    Will Google be the one to change this? I don’t know – I tend to doubt it. I don’t see Google TV as any great benefit to users, just to Google and it’s revenue from adverts. Why would I choose it over the alternative?

Filed Under: Search Marketing, Video