What's the difference between Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Don Imus? Well, only one of them has a future in terrestrial radio. Google and Clear Channel (NYSE:CCU) announced a deal this morning that will find the search engine giant providing 30-second audio ads to fill up a portion of the available inventory on more than 675 Clear Channel radio stations.

The deal is similar to one that Google struck earlier this month to provide televised ads for a segment of the billable slots on EchoStar's (NASDAQ:DISH) DISH Network.

Google has been broadening its reach lately, entering into deals for print, audio, and video advertising. Internet ads have been good to Google, but some feel that the company is vulnerable there, with online marketing accounting for 99% of the total revenues. As hot as Google has been, does it really want all of its eggs in one basket? Yes, these old-school moves are still advertising, but at least the baskets come in different colors.

The move comes at an interesting time for Clear Channel, with a tenuous buyout in the works. This isn't the kind of partnership that would derail the deal, but it does leave one wondering whether there's more life to terrestrial radio than doomsayers think.

Broadcasters have been able to hold their own against the migration to portable MP3 players, Internet radio, and satellite radio providers XM (NASDAQ:XMSR) and Sirius (NASDAQ:SIRI). They've gotten creative with their approaches to radio advertising. Google will be filling the conventional 30-second slots, but Clear Channel's sales force has been pitching significantly shorter branding spots, tweaking ad mixes, and creating off-the-air opportunities.

Everyone wins here. Clear Channel will have access to new customers. Less slots to fill on its own may mean higher prices if demand remains constant with the thinner supply. Then you have Google, hungry to prove that its dMarc acquisition to enter the radio advertising wasn't a mistake. And yes, it's another basket with a new color for Google.

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Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a huge fan of Google, and it would be his homepage if it weren't for Fool.com taking up that piece of real estate. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. Rick is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.