Google plans to stop selling advertising on broadcast radio at the end of May. Mountain View-based Google said the move could mean about 40 job cuts, the company's total work force being close to 20,200.

The leading Web search company said on Thursday that it plans to sell its Radio Automation business, which created software to automate broadcast radio programming, and phase out its Audio Ads service.

The decision to stop selling ads for broadcast radio stations comes less than a month after Google scrapped its effort to sell ads for newspapers. The company expanded into radio advertising three years ago.

"While we've devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven't had the impact we hoped for. So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online streaming audio," said Susan Wojcicki, Google's vice president of product management, in a blog post Thursday.

Advertisers will continue to be able to use Audio Ads until May 31, the company said.

Ms. Wojcicki also said that Google would use some of its radio advertising technology to deliver ads on streaming audio programs online. She said that Google would try to find new roles at the company for most of the people involved in the radio ads program, but added that “we expect that up to 40 people may not be able to find other roles at Google.”

Moreover Google said it still intends to place ads on television.