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Internet search provider Google Inc. said Monday that it is buying digital radio specialist dMarc Broadcasting so that Google advertisers can reach radio listeners.
dMarcs system for delivering radio ads will soon be incorporated into Googles adSense feature for Web publishers, according to a statement describing the deal.
The technology integration will “grow and improve the ecosystem of the radio industry,” according to a statement from Tim Armstrong, a Google vice president of advertising sales.
Radio represents the second new medium, other than the Internet, for Google ads. The other is newspapers. In recent weeks, a smattering of ads provided by Google have appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Advertising is the lifeblood for Internet portals, as Google and rivals Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc.s America Online and Microsoft Corp. try to serve as a one-stop destination for many different, and free, Internet features.
Competition demands each company continually improve upon the breadth and performance of their advertising.
“No doubt TV is on its way,” writes a commentator at the Search Engine Forum Roundtable.
At $1.2 billion, the deal is the largest yet of Googles acquisitions, and tellingly, it is rooted in advertising instead of search, which is Googles main feature, pointed out Paul Kedroskys Infectious Greed, a technology and finance blog site.
dMarc claims to have more than 4,600 radio broadcast clients, representing 40 percent of the top 50 radio groups.
Two dMarc subsidiaries, Scott Studio and Computer Concepts, sell hardware and software for automatically distributing ads to radio stations.
Google will initially pay $102 million in cash for dMarc, which is based in Newport Beach, Calif., and will make additional cash payments totaling up to $1.13 billion if some targets are met for net revenue, product integration and number of ads, according to Google.
The deal is expected to close in the next few months. Additional details were not forthcoming.