At the National Association of Broadcasters conference yesterday, Google announced plans to add a new feature to Search that will air times for TV shows. It means that when a person searches for a particular movie or show, Google will tell when it will be broadcast on cable. This new feature is in addition to the various online rental and streaming services already listed on it.
TV listings on Google search
To improve the results, users will be able to inform Google of how they get their cable or over-the-air TV with the help of a small “Edit provider” link. Google already gives users detailed info cards for movies and TV that include information on the cast, trailers and plot summaries.
“And what we’re seeing is that more and more, viewers are turning to their phones to find out what to watch, where to watch it and when it’s available — in fact, searches for TV shows and films on mobile have grown more than 55% in the past year alone,” the Internet firm said in a blog post.
Google’s new feature not only competes with IMDB but also with other forms of help people are using as a TV guide. No information is available on when the TV search listings will be rolled out, except the word “soon.”
Ad-related announcement
In addition to the consumer-facing announcement, Google made several other announcements affecting ad industry insiders. The Internet firm said its ad platform DoubleClick has improved at targeting for specific demographics on both live and on-demand TV.
Google is also working on automating some of the work required to choose the ads aired during breaks. The purpose behind doing this is to ensure “two automotive ads don’t appear in the same commercial break – and other rules like making sure an alcohol and children’s cereal ad don’t appear in the same commercial break.”
Google is also adding new TV partners to the advertising mix. With such a move, it is joining the likes of AMC in the U.S. and Globo in South America. MCN, Roku and Cablevision have all been added to Google’s list of partners, and they all will use DoubleClick for Publishers to serve ads and help shows “monetize cross-screen TV and video content.”
Google also revealed that it has partnered with Autodesk to strengthen content creation and plans to establish a new rendering solution called Maya for Google Cloud Platform ZYNC Render. This tool helps artists create content for both the big and small screen.
