Google has made its first official TV ad sales deal: it will sell and select some of the ads shown to EchoStar’s 13.1 million satellite TV subscribers, reports AP.  Last year the company quietly began testing its automated TV ad system with Astound Broadband in about 25,000 households in a suburb San Francisco.
Google’s TV ads will be targeted more broadly at specific demographic groups, regions and programs on one of the Dish Network‘s 125 satellite channels (unlike say its text ads which are very targeted). Each day, Google will analyze anonymous data culled from the set-top boxes of the Dish network subscribers and only bill advertisers for the segment of the audience that watched a commercial a designated amount of time.
But detractors abound. Nick Grouf, CEO of Spot Runner, a competitor which sells automated TV ads (and hence biased) says Google’s plans to sell TV ads creates “a fundamental channel conflict” as it also tries to funnel more online video ads into YouTube. “It would be the equivalent of NBC coming out and saying it’s going to try to sell advertising for Fox and ABC,” Grouf said.
Multichannel: Dish says only a small portion of its inventory will be sold by Google. The system—scheduled to begin trials in May—will sell ad space in an auction format only on cable networks, including ESPN, CNN, Discovery, Lifetime, Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. No national broadcast channels or local affiliates are part of the initial trial.
The unit is headed by Michael Steib, one of the founder of NBCU-unit NBBC, which he left earlier this year to join Google.  Steib said Intel, E*Trade and 1-800-Flowers will be among the charter advertisers; participating ad agencies include OMD Worldwide and Publicis.
LAT: Marketers can upload their ads, specify how much they’re willing to spend in total and bid for TV spots. They can also target an audience by selecting shows that match the demographics they want to reach and can choose the time of day or region in which the ads run. Within 24 hours, the advertisers receive feedback on how many times their ads have run and whether viewers switched channels during them.
News.com: With EchoStar, Google has electronically tied its online platform to the “head end” of the satellite TV operator, so the ad is inserted into the programming by the operator’s server. Advertisers currently produce the ads themselves. However, Google is planning to launch a marketplace that matches up marketers who don’t have experience creating ads with agencies that do.
Related:
—Google Testing Targeted Cable Ads: Report
—Google-CBS Deal Dead For Now; YouTube’s Tough Going With TV Networks
—Industry Moves: NBC’s Michael Steib Leaves For Google For Video Advertising