Google drops radio-ad business

Radio ambitions go to the wayside as Google focuses on its knitting - online advertising

Despite all the ballyhoo prior to entering the radio business back in 2006, Google has decided to drop it.

The search giant said it's abandoning its efforts to sell ads on radio broadcasts, because the effort did not have "the impact we hoped for," according to a Google blog post, written by Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management at Google.

Google's decision marks a pretty significant setback for the search engine, who back in early 2006 spent $102 million in cash, with a maximum of $1.136 billion over the next three years, to buy dMarc Technologies, a company that automated the process between advertisers and radio stations. At the time, dMarc already had several thousand radio-station customers.

Now the question is - is the radio business so antiquated that Google is just throwing its arms up and saying it's not worth pursuing? Or is this one business Google can't figure out? I'd say the former.

Heres what Google vice president of product management said on Google's blog post:

At Google we've never shied away from high-risk, high-reward projects. We believe that making big bets is not only in the best interests of our users and partners, but also important for our long term success. In 2006, we launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation to create a new revenue stream for broadcast radio, produce more relevant advertising for listeners and streamline the buying and selling of radio ads. While we've devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven't had the impact we hoped for.

So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online streaming audio. We will phase out the existing Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio products and plan to sell the Google Radio Automation business, the software that automates broadcast radio programming. Advertisers will continue to be able to use Google Audio Ads until May 31 and broadcasters will be able to publish inventory to Google until that date as well. We will work with partners to make sure that there is as little disruption to their business as possible and will work to find a buyer for the Google Radio Automation business.

Instead 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 addition, 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.