"Google Inc. has sent its clearest signal yet that it’s positioning itself to sell TV service in Kansas City and challenge cable service head-on," reports the Kansas City Star.

The article continues, "The company’s subsidiary, Google Fiber, recently filed applications in Missouri and Kansas to operate a video service. So besides bringing fastest-in-the-country home Internet service to Kansas City, the search and advertising behemoth also intends to compete with cable companies on TV service."

The story adds, "In the Kansas application, Google said it would use ‘national and regional video headend facilities’ — essentially programming collection points — ‘to send IPTV’ — a television-over-Internet technology like that used in AT&T’s Uverse — ‘across a private (Internet protocol) network to subscribers.’

"The key now, analysts say, is whether Google can corral enough sportscasts and high-end TV programming to lure customers. To accomplish that, Google will have to challenge Hollywood studios’ alliances with traditional distributors such as satellite television and cable operators. Time Warner Cable is the dominant distributor in Kansas City, although satellite services and Uverse have made recent inroads."

The Time magazine version of this story notes, " ‘Google’s decision to enter the video market is perhaps best viewed as an experiment in video delivery and package,’ Sanford C. Bernstein analysts Carlos Kirjner and Craig Moffett wrote in a note to clients Tuesday, ‘but perhaps also as an admission that their original proposal of a broadband-only business model is not economically viable.’ Indeed, if Google is going to go to the trouble of building out a new fiber network, it makes sense to bundle additional services beyond broadband Internet, and pay TV is an obvious choice."