Google yearns to make YouTube a TV network

As Google targets the TV set, it is also making a play for TV-sized ad buys rather than smaller online budgets. In recent weeks, the search giant has been making the rounds of Madison Avenue agencies to demonstrate Google TV, its new Internet service that is integrated into Web-connected TV sets.

The search giant sees Google TV as a way to combine the Web and the TV set, making it easy to find and watch content. With Web-enabled sets, viewers can also watch YouTube content on the big screen as easily as traditional television. Google's TV ambitions have not gone unnoticed among the network brass. Last week, it emerged that ABC, CBS and NBC were blocking online versions of their full programs from appearing on Google TV.