Google TV coming to LG televisions?

Google linking up with LG?
Google linking up with LG?

LG is looking to add Google TV to its latest television sets, as well as creating its own app store for its web-connected tellies, but is worried that Google may become too dominant in the TV sphere.

This is according to LG's chief executive of digital display, Simon Kang, who said in an interview recently that the company was interested in what Google was offering.

"Google TV could spark strong interest in the market," Kang noted, "but the reason we are deliberating is because Google may one day dominate the software space and we don't want to end up as just a hardware provider."

Net gains

LG, like all the major TV manufacturers, is no stranger to web-connected tellies. Just this year it launched its Netcast service which offers web services like YouTube, CinemaNow and Pandora through a TV set.

This service looks likely to be bolstered with an LG application store later in the year.

Couple this with Google TV and it would seem that LG has all corners of the web TV market sewn up.

Kang does note that despite new TV technologies like web connectivity and 3D, it is still a struggle selling in the television market, explaining: "We previously thought that demand for TVs in the second half will be very strong, but as global economic conditions are worsening, this will impact the foreign-exchange rate and we may even have to raise our TV prices."

Although it does look as if earnings will improve in the second half for LG, it seems that even the biggest manufacturers need headline grabbers to sell TVs.

Maybe a name like Google will be the answer.

Via Gizmodo

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.