[ Of possible interest ... -- Lauren ]

April 1, 2009

Google Announces Merger with Major TV Networks

Mountain View, CA (VTX) -- In a move sending shock waves throughout the Internet and broadcasting worlds, Internet services giant Google today announced a merger between Google and the four major U.S. commercial television networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) plus cable news operations CNN and FOX News.

The new corporate name for the merged entity will be "Google."

In the first entry of the new official "Google TV Blog" that appeared this morning, Google VP for Television Programming Quality and Viewer Experience, Harvey Flint, noted that, "Google hopes to rapidly bring the changes associated with our 'don't be evil' corporate philosophy to these acquired properties, especially FOX News."

Among reported major changes already being planned for the broadcast networks under the Google regime will be a requirement that commercial breaks take place at exactly ten minute intervals, to allow for dependable synchronization with Google's YouTube viewers.

Industry reaction to the announcement has been generally favorable.

Longtime broadcasting columnist Rhoda Grant of Multitudinous Channel magazine commented that, "Considering how badly broadcasters have screwed up by mishandling the Internet Revolution themselves, there's no way that Google can possibly make things any worse. And besides, I own Google stock."

There were some cautionary observers. Barney Blase, owner of a small rural ISP in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota, complained that, "All this emphasis on video is ridiculous. There's nothing worthwhile that can't be accomplished via dial-up acoustic modems and punched paper tape."

Executives of the acquired broadcasting networks were unavailable for comment, reportedly due to their attending of a hurriedly arranged meeting to update their "LinkedIn" profiles.

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