Google shutters AdWords for TV

In a blog post, Google VP Shishir Mehrotra says Google is shutting down the online TV ad selling service after five years. After Google Radio (it used AdWords) was sold to WideOrbit in 2009 and shuttered its Print Ads AdWords program for newspapers that same year, it seems the company should stick to all things online and leave it at that.

Here’s what Mehrotra said:

“The latest news from the Google TV Ads team

An update on Google TV Ads

Our goal is to provide all our customers with the best digital marketing opportunities. In 2007, 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.

However, video is increasingly going digital and users are now watching across numerous devices. So we’ve made the hard decision to close our TV Ads product over the next few months and move the team to other areas at Google. We’ll be doubling down on video solutions for our clients (like YouTube, AdWords for Video, and ad serving tools for web video publishers). We also see opportunities to help users access web content on their TV screens, through products like Google TV.

Of course we’ll continue to support our partners, and our clients’ campaigns, as we shut the product down.

Thanks to all our clients, partners and the team that has worked on Google TV Ads over the past few years. The future of video advertising is extremely bright and we’re excited to devote ourselves fully to it.”

Launched in 2007, Google TV Ads was to duplicate on television the self-service search-ad model that has turned Google into an online giant. Google TV Ads customers could upload video ads to Google’s site and then decide how much they want to spend per ad impression.