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The New York Times has break the news about TargetSpot, a startup aiming to become an advertisement platform for Internet Radio, which by the end of 2006 had 72 million listeners according to Bridge Ratings, a market research firm. The service will officially launch on June 28, 2007.

TargetSpot has found its first client in the form of CBS radio, which also happens to be an investor in the startup. TargetSpot could be thought of as an adsense for online radio, as it enables advertisers large and small to create both localized or nation wide ads. Advertisers could target their ads on the basis of demographics, service area such as zipcode, region, or state, programming preferences like sports,talks etc, specific times of day and other such criteria. The company is claiming on their website that their Advanced Targeting System supports over one billion possibilities!

TargetSpot will allow advertisers to create audio, and video ads of 15, 30 or 60 seconds in length. Advertisers could also display banner and textual ads. TargetSpot has created a rich set of tools enabling advertisers to create each of the above mentioned type of ads and also allow a host of customization options such as:

• Opt to have seasoned voice over professionals record your ads in both male and female voices and in your choice of five different delivery styles.
• Create your ads using realistic computer-generated speech using both male and female voices in a variety of styles.
• Enhance your ads by adding professionally produced background jingles and high-quality sound effects to them.
• Upload your company’s logo to accompany your ad as they run or select an image from our Visual Library.
• Create, store and manage up to 500 ads of different types and lengths!, and a lot more.

Similar to Adsense TargetSpot will allow advertisers to bid against each other for time slots, with the highest bidder bagging the auctioned time slot. The advertising system also allows advertisers to track the effectiveness of their ads using a number of methods like unique phone numbers or clickable ads tethered to the audio ads. TargetSpot hopes to sign up other broadcasters as well, besides CBS Radio.

Google is currently focusing on terrestrial radio and has signed major deal with ClearChannel Communications, the largest U.S. radio station owner, which has enabled the ad giant to serve 30 seconds ads across Clear Channel’s 675 radio stations. Google could easily enter the online radio advertisement market if and when desired, but today’s acquisition of RightMedia by Yahoo shows that there are enough big players out there eager to quickly snap up advertisement startups to compete with Google.

Besides CBS Radio, the company has received funding from Union Square Ventures and Oddcast Inc, but the amount of funding is not disclosed.

[via Techmeme]