Google Courts Broadcasters with YouTube Ads

According to VNU Net, Google has teamed up with broadcasters to create a new advert format for its YouTube video-sharing website. Patrick Walker, European head of video partnerships at Google announced on Friday at MIPTV that broadcasters and other content producers are working with Google on 30-second "pre-roll" ads to appear before content is viewed on YouTube.

The ads will start appearing next year, and revenue will be shared between YouTube and the broadcaster.

Google's revenue from YouTube is likely to get yet another boost following the company's $3.1bn acquisition last week of digital marketing company DoubleClick.

Google will use DoubleClick's technology to encourage YouTube users to click from one video to another.