Google Could Be Planning to Completely Disrupt the TV Business [REPORT]

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The company's already announced plans to build a fiber-optic high-speed Internet service in Kansas City, Mo. and Kansas City, Kan., and according to The Wall Street Journal [subscription required], now Google might be thinking about ways to expand that into pay video and telephone services.

That would put Google in direct competition with cable companies and phone companies that have expanded into what's called the "triple play" of communications: cable television, telephone and high-speed Internet.

The Wall Street Journal said "no final decisions have been made," but added Google has talked about including content owned by Disney, Time Warner and Discovery Communications. Further evidence would be the rumored hiring of cable TV executive Jeremy Stern, who is said to be leading those discussions with the media conglomerates.

This would put Google in a position where it could not only sell subscriptions to the pay TV channels, but sell ads on those channels as well. It would also put its video-on-demand services in a sweet spot, perhaps moving many of its video capabilities over to the streaming-video Internet side, rather than the conventional cable TV business model.

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And, as its Google TV continues its current expansion onto a variety of hardware platforms (including, perhaps something manufactured by Motorola Mobility, which Google now owns), the Android-based Google TV might make it easier for customers to search and sort through the tremendous numbers of programs that could be available on such a service.