GOOGLE, CLEAR CHANNEL PACT FOR ADVERTISING
Google has been working for months to expand its ad sales operation into traditional media.
The partnership with Clear Channel will give Google access to just under 5% of Clear Channel’s commercial time, including 30-second spots on all of the chain’s 675 stations during all programs and all times of the day.
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the arrangement, except to say that Clear Channel would receive the majority of the ad revenue.
Said Clear Channel’s CEO John Hogan: “It represents an opportunity to put what is arguably the hottest sales organization in the world to work selling our inventory, and we’re very excited about that.”
Hogan said that Google would bring new advertisers to his stations and would have access to premium inventory.
Google chief exec Eric Schmidt said last year that he planned to eventually have 1,000 employees working in the company’s radio unit. Google paid almost $1.24 billion to acquire dMarc Broadcasting early last year, and used that company’s systems to expand its AdSense for Audio sales system to include radio capabilities. Advertisers log on to the AdSense website, choose what type of ad they want and submit their bids.
Google executives have said they hope to expand the offerings on their AdSense site to include all types of advertising, online and offline. On Friday, Google agreed to pay $3.1 billion to acquire DoubleClick, a company that Google hopes will help it move beyond the text and search ads that generate most of its revenue.
Google also recently started selling ads for the 125 national satellite channels on EchoStar Communications’
