With the news of Google wrapping up their TV Ads service in the US, many are asking, is this Google pulling out of the traditional TV market?

Launched in 2007 as a way to bring the transparency of an open auction bidding model to traditional television ad buying, Google offered a promising new development to the world of advertising. Google’s vision was to create a new market for television ads that in the past have been out of reach for smaller businesses and budgets. Google VP Shishir Mehrotra posted, “We launched Google TV Ads in Adwords to bring digital buying and measurement technologies to traditional TV advertising. Since then, lots of our clients have bought traditional TV advertising for the first time.”

While this move, on the face of it, might seem Google are withdrawing from the TV arena, we at SMG believe it is better described as a change of focus in their ambitions in making headway into the TV landscape.

With TV revenue still taking a sizeable proportion of advertising revenue in the UK, it's no secret that Google has high ambitions in getting a foothold in the TV market. However, it was no surprise Google had little traction in the US market with their TV Ad service, due to the dominance of the well established networks, where ad space is still controlled and delivered by the traditional mechanics.

Because of this, we see Google redoubling their efforts in content and distribution platforms - like YouTube, AdWords for Video and Google TV - platforms they believe are the future of how audiences will consume video content - multi-platform, device agnostic, searchable, non linear.

Combine this with Google's ambitions in launching a TV and online single source household measurement system (in partnership with Kantar), that will help marketers evaluate and understand the true value of linear and non linear video communication, we firmly believe this is just a refocussing of effort by Google into those areas that mirror the changing way audiences consume video content.