Google TV via Internet instead of cable TV ?

If Google has its way, you might someday get cable television the same way you get Gmail: Through any ordinary internet connection. Foreshadowing a new challenge to entrenched cable and satellite providers, Google is one of several technology giants trying to license TV channels for an internet cable service, according to people with direct knowledge of the company's efforts.

No deals are imminent. But Google's recent meetings with major media companies that own channels are a sign of the new-found race to sell cable-like services via the internet, creating an alternative to the current television packages that 100 million American households buy from companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Intel is hard at work on one such service and companies like Sony and Microsoft have previously shown interest in the same idea, called an "over the top" service because the channels would ride on top of existing broadband connections. They need support from the channel owners, though, and so far that has been tepid.

Google, which also owns YouTube, the world's largest online video site, declined to comment on its television interest. But by instigating conversations with channel owners about a service that would compete with the likes of Comcast, the company is taking a different tack than its rival Apple, which has been trying to collaborate with both channel owners and their distributors on a TV offering.

"Google feels the need to beat Apple to the punch," said one of the people with direct knowledge of the meetings, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Apple's thinking, according to these people, is that any next-generation television service must be set up in partnership with existing distributors, in part for quality assurance reasons. A future Apple service could include a user-friendly interface layered on top of Time Warner Cable or Cablevision's channel line-up. "Apple's working within our current ecosystem," one of the people said.