Following Google’s announcement that it would make a misguided move into newspaper ad space buying, late news comes that the search giant may buy $1 billion in radio inventory.The clear winner in this would be radio giant Clear Channel. If Google buys such a large block of time from the radio chain, Clear Channel’s flagging fortunes is an ailing industry could be reversed, at least temporarily. Four years ago, Clear Channel’s stock traded at $53. It now changes hands around $35, having made a move up from $28 on but-out rumors.Still, it is by no means certain that Google’s second foray into tradition media this week will work. The system Google is offering will allow its advertising customers to use its Adsense system to sign up for radio advertising by picking radio advertising the way it would AdWords. Google argues that this is an efficient means for buying time on stations.But, is it? Radio is targeted by region first, and then by demographic segment and programming type. Buying radio is not rocket science. It is actually a simple and effective means for targerting people especially during “drive time” from 6 AM to 10 AM and then again in the late afternoon.Radio can only be as efficient as the size of its audience. Satellite radio and in-car iPod have cut into this audience and that is likely to continue.Like newspapers, buying advertising in a medium with a falling audience may not be attractive, whether the ad are bought through Google or directly from the source.Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
Google Takes To The Airwaves (GOOG)(CCU)
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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