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Google to serve ads on DIRECTV

SAN FRANCISCO— Satellite dish television service DIRECTV said Wednesday that Google will be serving ads on its cable broadcasts of programs such as Fox Business and G4.

Google TV Ads were expected to reach the 18.7 million US households that get broadcasts from DIRECTV.

“We are delighted to partner with Google and embark on this initiative together,” said DIRECTV senior vice president Bob Riordan, Senior Vice President, DIRECTV Advertising Sales.

The partnership comes as Internet giant Google is out to expand its kingdom to the living room with an ambitious new service that lets people mesh television viewing with surfing the Web.

“Google TV,” developed in partnership with technology titans Sony, Intel and Logitech, fuses the freedom of the Internet with television programming.

Google executives vowed their TV platform unveiled in San Francisco in May will succeed where offerings such as Apple TV have foundered.

Google TV, which is powered by Google’s Android software and Chrome Web browser, can be accessed using upcoming Web-enabled televisions from Sony or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing TV sets.

Sony and Logitech said the sets and boxes will be available in the United States in time for the year-end holiday shopping season and be rolled out internationally next year.

Initially, advertising served on Google TV will be the same as seen now by television viewers or Web surfers, but the Internet firm said it is pondering ways to tailor advertising to the platform.

Google is not the first technology company to attempt to unite the TV set and the Internet and a number of electronics manufacturers already offer Web-enabled televisions or digital set-top boxes.

Yahoo! jumped into the Internet television arena more than a year ago, teaming with set makers including Sony, Samsung, VIZIO, and LG to build in software that let viewers link directly to designated websites.