Yahoo! Unveils Yahoo! Broadcast

Yahoo! re-launched its streaming destination site (broadcast.yahoo.com), where users can access interactive content from partner sites. The new site features the same look and feel as Yahoo!'s FinanceVision, with an attached video window, browser, and synchronized media window.

The old Broadcast.com site now redirects visitors to Yahoo! Events, a site that essentially acts as a guide to live events, like chats and webcasts.

Yahoo! Broadcast essentially hosts it's own content and aggregates content from third party-providers broken down in the following categories. Live Online, Music, Movies, News, Science, Travel, Weather, Sports, Shopping, Classic TV and Profiles. Yahoo! is also touting its own content, Live@Yahoo!, where it invites musical artists to play live in its studios. It currently features performances by Amy Rigby and Bob Schneider.

"Yahoo! Broadcast is reflective of our commitment to bring consumers the easiest-to-use, most compelling broadband content experience on the Internet," said Ellen Siminoff, senior vice president of entertainment and small business, Yahoo! Inc. "Yahoo! Broadcast represents the best in the convergence of entertainment and new media. This new service combines the interactivity of the Web with the rich experience of television and radio."

Provider partners include ABCNEWS.com, Accuweather, Adventure TV.com, ClassicMovies.com, CourtTV.com, Like Television, Mondo Media, MovieFlix.com, Neurotrash.com, Piratenet, Trailervision, WildBrain, UrbanEntertainment.com and VastVideo.

Yahoo! said that aggregating content, provides enhanced advertiser packages, especially when reaching the "9-to-5" workday broadband audience.

"Traditional television broadcast advertising strives to raise consumer awareness of a product or service, in the hope that a consumer will remember that product or brand when making a purchasing decision," said David Mandelbrot, general manager of Yahoo! Entertainment. "Now, through the interactive experience of Yahoo! Broadcast, advertisers can enjoy the benefits of highly trackable commercials — within relevant media experiences — that are just one click away from a commerce transaction."

Although this initiative targets the entertainment space, Yahoo! has been traditionally big with business-to-business streaming. In Yahoo!'s last SEC filing, it reported $76.5 million in revenues from its webcasting and business service for the first nine months of 2000.