By: E&P Staff Google is talking with several British newspaper publishers about extending to the U.K. its Google Print Ads auction system for selling space in their pages, according to a report in the Sunday Times of London.
"This expansion will worry bosses of rival media companies, including ITV chairman Michael Grade, who has already called for greater regulation on the fast-growing Google," the Times article by James Ashton said.
Google has been selling print ads for U.S. newspapers since the summer.
Google's U.K. advertising revenues rose roughly 40% to about 1.25 billion pounds, or $2.48 billion this year, the Times reported. It said that was more than the revenues of newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror's income, including circulation income. "Google has already outpaced Channel 4 and beaten ITV1 in the third quarter" in advertising revenues, the Times said.
Britain, with high broadband penetration, is one of only four nations where Internet advertising share is more than 15% of total advertising spend, the Times report noted.
It quoted Phil Stokes, leader of the entertainment and media practice at Price Waterhouse Coopers, as saying: "We can foresee newspaper groups participating in online exchanges for print advertising in the near future, but consider it unlikely that the larger players will automatically gravitate towards a large specialist third-party online provider without looking for other solutions first."
The report apparently triggered a brief rally in the stock (NYSE: GOOG) Monday, pushing it above $700. But at 1:25 EST on down on last day of trading for the year, Google was trading at 698.20, down 4.43, or 0.64%.
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