Paramount Domestic Television's Entertainment Tonight is teaming with online portal Yahoo to create a branded Web site that benefits both partners.
"There are benefits for both of us," says Jim Moloshok, Yahoo's senior vice president of media, entertainment, information and finance, who once was the Web guru for Warner Bros. television. "Paramount will be able to have their programming content and site featured on the No. 1 Web portal, which gets 232 million hits a month worldwide and 80 million unique hits domestically. And for Yahoo!, the advantage is that we get to form a relationship with a fantastic entertainment-news organization that will provide us with exclusive news and broadband video features."
As part of an ongoing effort to expand its audience, ET wanted to increase its Internet presence where many of its viewers spend their days. ET already offers fans a push client, called Instant ET, that sends ET-branded content to viewers' desktops all day long. But the new Web site will post ET news, information and exclusives on YahooTV's home page, and it will also provide a highly visible ET "module" on each of Yahoo's entry pages, such as Yahoo Movies, Yahoo TV and Yahoo Entertainment.
As part of the partnership, Yahoo will sell all the advertising for ET Online, and ET Online staffers will continue to produce packages for the site and provide content. Together, the partners will produce minisites under the umbrella of ET Online. Yahoo will take the lead on events, such as the Emmys, Oscars and Cannes Film Festival, while ET Online will produce sites on such topics as Hollywood couples, the fall television preview and a farewell to NBC's Friends.
Entertainment Tonight is unveiling its new Web site today. The Web address, www.etonline.com, will remain the same, although the site also can be found at http://et.yahoo.com.
