"At some stage it becomes more expensive to buy Google than it does network television"
-- Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis Groupe Media

Tobaccowala is correct but we're already at that stage. If the minimum CPC for Google Search is $0.05, then the effective CPM per pageview generated from an advertisement on Google is already $50. That's expensive -- and way more expensive than what advertisers pay for network television.

Perhaps what Tobaccowala really means is that, from a total cost perspective, Google may garner more money than network television on the average traditional advertiser's media plan. Frankly, I doubt this will ever happen unless network television completely falls apart. AdWords on Google are already expensive (from an eCPM perspective) and most advertisers buy 10-1000 keywords (unless you're eBay or Amazon and buy millions of keywords) per month. Even if the search volume/inventory doubles, total billings spent wouldn't come close to amount required to compete with network TV billings. Moreover, even if the cost of AdWords doubles, it's not there. Search is a great way to reach a lean-forward audience. It's also an incredible business that may one day overtake network TV in total aggregate billings across all media deals. But unless search evolves into a completely different animal, it's unlikely to take over network TV from a media-billings-per-plan perspective.

[from ClickZ and MarketingToday]