Google's Radio Ad Conquest Falls Flat

Google has hit a stumbling block in its quest for world domination: A bid to “conquer radio” with its advertising program didn’t go as planned, and the firm is dropping the effort at the end of the month, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Internet giant bet its automated model could revolutionize the radio-advertising market—but stations and advertisers were less enthusiastic.

The industry wasn’t keen on dropping established business practices. The key trouble, said Google’s CEO, was that unlike with Internet ads, where users’ clicks can be tracked, the company couldn’t get good feedback on “which ads performed.” Google “underestimated the human side of the business,” writes Jessica Vascellaro; the failure, she notes, shows that it’s a long way from ruling the offline world. (More radio stories.)