TV Advertising Auction Fails Just As New Experiment Is Launched
from the going-both-ways dept
Earlier this week, Google announced that it would begin managing some of the ads that appear on the Dish network in an attempt to extend its auction-based ad sales model outside of its traditional realm. This isn’t the first attempt to merge TV advertising with auctions, however. Last summer, eBay announced a similar program, as it hoped that its experience with auctions could help make TV ad sales more efficient. But it looks like eBay’s efforts have fallen flat, as one of its only participants, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, has pulled out of the project, saying that eBay’s service was too narrowly focused, and didn’t fit in with the broader goals of the cable TV industry. In other words, auctions alone aren’t that interesting or game changing. While auctions may result in somewhat more accurate pricing, pricing isn’t really the main problem facing the TV industry. So while eBay’s experiment is already sputtering badly, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the same fate befall Google.
