Intriguing: Google switches on TV search beta

Google has launched a service designed to search TV content from US broadcasters including PBS, NBA, Fox News and C-SPAN.

The Google Video beta enables users to search across the closed captioning content of a growing number of TV programmes that the firm began indexing in December 2025.

Entering a query will return a list of relevant programmes with still images and text excerpts from the exact point in the programme where the search word or phrase was spoken, the search giant claimed.

“What Google did for the web, Google Video aims to do for television,” said Larry Page, Google co-founder and president of products.

It seems to work and is rather interesting, and potentially of use ot bloggers who want to grab a quote or bit of info from TV to use on their blogs. It must index farily quickly–I found stuff from last Sunday quite easily (indeed, a bit more tinkering and I found stuff from yesterday).

Here’s the link: http://video.google.com/.

Update: James Joyner noticed this yesterday, but I was so busy yesterday I barely read the news, let alone other blogs. His reaction to the accessibility to TV transcripts is the same as mine (ditto Glenn Reynolds’, for that matter, who calls it “Bloggers Delight”). And yes, I know both those are links from yesterday-and reporting news that is a day old is so Old Media, but so it goes.