/ 03.09.2010 12:00AM
Google Tests TV Search on Dish Network
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. and ENGLEWOOD, COLO.: Google
is testing a program search function with Dish Network, The
Wall Street Journal said last night. The configuration involves Dish
set-tops equipped with Google Android-based software capable of searching
through TV network programming as well as Web video. The search interface is
said to be via QWERTY keyboard versus a remote control. The test sample is
limited, reports indicate--just a few Google employees, rather than Dish’s
entire 13.6-million subscriber universe.
Google and Dish parent EchoStar have teamed up before, on Google’s TV
ad-selling platform two years ago. Dish then gave Google access to 125 national
networks carried on Dish for buying, selling, delivering and measuring TV ads. The
Google TV Ads platform is a self-service, auction-based system for advertisers.
The big broadcast networks did not participate, though Google managed to get
Dish, Hallmark Channel, Bloomberg TV and NBCU’s cable channels, according to Business
Week. The BW article points
out that Google has ended experiments in selling newspaper and radio ads, and
pondered if Google TV Ads would likewise be shut down.
Linking the ad platform with audience search data, however, would provide the
search giant an additional raft of information for its advertisers. Those now
include Lenovo, Priceline, Jenny Craig, Johnson & Johnson and a few others,
BW said.