Google ad revenue 'to surpass TV'

Google made a global profit of $733m in its third quarter

Google is about to overtake the UK's main commercial TV channels in the race for advertising revenue, a study says.

It found that the US internet search giant's 2006 UK revenues are expected to surpass Channel Four's predicted £800m ($1.5bn) returns.

Google will then overtake ITV1 within 18 months, advertising buying companies Mindshare and Initiative told the Financial Times.

Last month Google revealed global third quarter profits of $733m (£390m).

This was a 92% increase on the $381m it made during the same time last year.

YouTube acquisition

Google's overall third quarter revenues rose 70% from a year earlier to $2.7bn.

It also announced last month that it has bought video-sharing website YouTube for $1.65bn.

YouTube has 100 million videos viewed every day and an estimated 72 million individual visitors each month.

ITV1 accounts for 90% of the ITV group's advertising revenues, which totalled £1.63bn last year.