At a time when established TV networks are struggling to work out what their future might look like, Google has a radical idea of where TV is going.

Speaking at at iTV Con, a conference about Internet TV,
Vincent Dureau, Google’s head of TV technology, applied the net giant’s approach to television.

As we all know, television is facing an identity crisis – lots more niche channels, Youtube, DVRs. This means that it is far harder to reach such a fragmented audience. According to Dureau, audience fragmentation is a good thing for advertising, if you apply Google thinking to the problem.

With more specialized channels, you can actually insert more relevant content that’s more likely to reach the intended audience. You can actually make more money, because you can increase the relevancy of your ads. You can cut down on the number of ads – and still reach more people. At the end of the day, you’re changing the attitude of the consumer. They’ve reached a point where they expect the ad to be relevant and they’re more likely to watch it.

Analysing the comments and Google’s recent moves towards video, Last100 suggests that the company is quietly working to put the Google “ecosystem” behind TV, just like it is behind the web.

TV executives should have restless nights. Google has changed the way use the Internet. Imagine what it could do to television.