Entertaindom was supposed to be the answer to Time Warner (TWTC)'s confusing online entertainment strategy. But that's not what's happened.
Last week, Burbank, Calif.-based Warner Bros. promoted Kevin Tsujihara from senior VP of corporate strategic planning and development to executive VP of new media, reporting to chairman Barry Meyer. A Warner representative says the appointment was part of an overall management restructuring. But the move comes just four months after the launch of Entertaindom, raising questions about how happy Warner's top brass is with the site.
According to February data from Nielsen NetRatings, Entertaindom ranked No. 664 overall and No. 66 in the entertainment category - just ahead of Backstreetboys.com.
Meanwhile, another studio, Disney, recently decided to reposition its Go.com property as an entertainment portal. The market has become glutted by attempts to entertain consumers online, with sites from Columbia TriStar, DreamWorks and eCompanies, among others.
Tsujihara is now part of a new second layer of executive VPs created after former studio chiefs Bob Daly and Terry Semel left at the end of last year. Now, top Warner Bros.-Entertaindom execs Jim Moloshok and Jim Banister will report to Tsujihara instead of to Meyer.
Already, Tsujihara appears to be making decisions about the studio's online direction, with an emphasis on the Warner brand. "We will relaunch [Warner Bros. Online] this summer and reposition the brand and refocus it for all our properties," he says, adding that "if a fan of Batman wants to go online, we want them to know they can go to Warner Bros. Online." Currently, such content is available on both the Warner Bros. Online and Entertaindom sites.
Banister and Moloshok "have been focusing on Entertaindom," according to Tsujihara, and are not expected to be closely involved with the overhaul of the Warner Bros. Online site. The two executives were not available for comment.
The latest shuffle comes on the heels of Warner's online tumbles with parent company Time Warner, which got involved in content decisions that delayed Entertaindom's launch last fall.
Tsujihara hopes to emphasize his role as king of all things new media, including wireless and interactive TV developments. He has been involved with such initiatives in the past, particularly in Warner's investment in OpenTV. Tsujihara reports that an interactive form of the entertainment news show Extra is in development.
Questions remain over where Entertaindom will fit into America Online (dossier), following its planned acquisition of Time Warner. "We're in the process of figuring out what shared resources there are between Warner Bros. Online and Entertaindom, and what synergies there are with AOL (dossier)," says Tsujihara. He adds that Warner is "extremely happy with what [Entertaindom] has been able to do" since its late November launch.
AOL did not return calls for comment regarding the company's interest in or involvement with Entertaindom. However, AOL doesn't feature "Entertaindom" as a keyword on its proprietary service, nor as a link on its main Entertainment section on the AOL.com Web site.
In the merger announcement, future AOL-Time Warner Chairman Gerald Levin noted: "Entertaindom is on AOL, but Entertaindom will be doing other things."
