Google Adds 14 Channels to TV Search

By David Worthington, BetaNews

May 2, 2005, 6:05 PM

Turning its Internet search prowess to television, Google has added 14 new channels to its Google Video service. Although Google will not release a full lineup, Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, Discovery Health Channel, and CNN are among the new channels covered by the service.

Google Video archives television content by capturing the closed captioning text of TV programs. The text is enriched with still frame images uploaded from each show. Google cannot provide full transcripts or video clips as a result of unsettled licensing terms.

Programming will be expanded internationally when work is completed in the U.S. television market, Google told BetaNews.

Development of TV indexing is running parallel to Google's new video distribution platform. Content owners may upload video to Google's servers and maintain control over distribution rights. When the system is in production, end users will search, preview, purchase and play videos through Google.

Google is not alone in its show biz ambitions. Competitor Yahoo is promoting its TV and video search service that scours the text surrounding video links, including metadata. Yahoo has also partnered with TVEyes to index closed captioning content from the BBC, Bloomberg and Sky.