Google to possibly buy into Clear Channel

**Itsme** · 11-05-2006, 10:15 AM

And the world keeps evolving...

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Google to possibly buy into Clear Channel
Posted on Saturday, November 04, 2006 @ 8:29 PM CST by admin

The search engine giant is stated to be interested in buying into Clear Channel, but Clear Channel is still testing waters and weighing out options. What would this mean? Google would take a minority stake in radio, TV and outdoor advertising giant Clear Channel which would expand the online advertising avenues to a broader platform. Why is Google so interested? Google is interested in radio because of the mobile angle and this would be a good buy since Google has been making big moves with mobile geo-location services.

While Google may be thinking of buying into the advertising giant others believe Google should not get involved with Clear Channel since they have access to ad inventory through dMarc.

Some may ask who is dMarc. dMarc Broadcasting is a company that puts ads into radio stations and Google is currently stated to be paying up to $1.1 billion for it. Google is stated to have possibly paid $102 million up front as part of the deal, with a maximum amount of $1.136 billion which would be paid over the next three years or less. Google bought the company in order for Google advertisers to reach radio listeners with it's intergrated advertising system adSense.

Could Google be the next generation of radio, TV, outdoor advertising and marketing after making a huge presence online? With Clear Channel's 3rd quarter earnings falling almost 10%, but with a profit and revenue increase, what will be the decision of the advertising giant Clear Channel.

In other news, recently Google made an ad deal with XM Satellite Radio to automatically insert ads on the XM Satellite Radio nonmusic channels. Google will serve the ads via dMarc's network to a portion of the 7 million paid subscribers on XM Satellite radio. AdWord's customers will then be able to place satellite and terrestrial spots on the air.

http://www.memphisrap.com:80/community/article1024.html