Yahoo Now Big Man in Hollywood?
Venture Reporter.net interviews (registration required) Yahoo entertainment head Dough Hirsch for an interesting update on how Terry Semel's arrival is changing Yahoo. According to this article, "the Web giant has been investing significantly in Yahoo Entertainment, which contains its Yahoo Movies and Yahoo TV destinations. The former now the top ranked online movie destination. Yahoo boasts marketing deals with every major film studio and just signed its first major network deal. According to a recent article in Variety, the average studio spend per movie on a Yahoo deal is $300,000." Hirsch says,
Getting quantitative data was one of the first things we tackled when we arrived in L.A. We have an in-house research team that we complement with frequent surveys and exit polls using recognized measurement companies like NRG and Nielsen. Our data has consistently shown that the Internet, and Yahoo in particular, plays a huge role in the decision-making process for Entertainment. We have repeatedly surveyed small and large films and found that the Web regularly beats out newspapers, radio and billboards as a first source of information on films, and that almost 25% of moviegoers use the Web to choose the movie they will see that day.
According to a study on a recent opening weekend for one of the summer's biggest blockbusters, 51% of men under 25 learned about the film online, and almost half of them saw about it on Yahoo. Research like that and our recent successes at promoting nine number one box office films this summer are making our story resonate with the industry.