It could be just what couch potatoes everywhere have been waiting for – YouTube (as well as much of the rest of the Web) is coming to your TV this autumn, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced yesterday. Before you ready your Microsoft WebTV cracks, consider this: Americans alone view over 13 billion videos a month on YouTube. That’s a lot of eyeballs.

The idea is all part of Google’s attempt to extend its lead in the online video wars through the introduction of Google TV. Google has opened up its TV service to Android OS developers, who are creating applications that allow cloud-based experiences including gaming and social sharing. According to Google’s philosophy, Google TV “becomes more than a TV – it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.” The idea is to launch Google TV in the U.S. this autumn; no details on the dates of a roll-out for the rest of us.

Google has also been working deals with Sony and Samsung to make Google TV a built-in function of new sets, and it just announced that the service would go online this autumn in the US, only one week after Apple announced its newly-priced TV device at $99.

Not surprisingly, Apple’s initial reaction to Google’s approach has been to sling mud. Apple’s idea for its TV service is somewhat different. The primary function of Apple TV is to bring viewers, in the words of Steve Jobs, “Hollywood movies and TV shows.” Jobs’ view of Google TV? Viewers “don’t want an amateur hour.” In essence, Apple is aiming to provide high quality professional content, and accessing YouTube videos comes secondary. In fact, the Apple TV doesn’t allow for access to Facebook, Vimeo or Blip.tv videos, with their primarily-amateur content. Not very social. At least not for now.

Google TV, meanwhile, is putting more third-party and amateur innovation into the hands of TV viewers, and it is bringing what the majority of Internet users already watch to the living room. And why not? According to the latest viewing numbers from comScore, YouTube on the TV could be a real entertainment force, particularly among teens and twenty-somethings who’ve long ridden off TV as simply un-cool.

Google’s liberal attitude towards its service will bring new privacy and copyright concerns, no doubt. The former, Google seems to have covered. CEO Schmidt already said last week that Google would be simplifying the Google privacy policy to apply to all levels of content on its platforms. As for the latter, well, that may already be sorting itself out as content producers start to see some revenues from those YouTube eyeballs.