Yahoo Executive Shifts Duties to Focus on Hollywood Ad and Content Deals

Yahoo Inc.’s top entertainment executive has dropped his day-to-day management responsibilities to concentrate on signing content deals with movie and television studios.

Jim Moloshok, the former senior vice president for media and entertainment in Santa Monica, recently made a quiet move to a newly created position to focus full-time on getting Hollywood to buy more splashy advertising and make more of its content available on Yahoo, a spokeswoman for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company confirmed Tuesday.

The change underscores the need of Internet firms to win the favor of old-fashioned media companies, especially as more content is delivered over fast connections.

Yahoo and competitors like Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s America Online division are betting that Web surfers who come for broadband programming will stay and conduct online searches, which generate the most advertising dollars, said Anthony Valencia, an analyst at TCW Group Inc. in Los Angeles.

“People are going to end up searching on the spot where they spend the most time,” Valencia said.

Yahoo also would stand to gain from selling more banner ads and selling music and video downloads.

Moloshok, who will remain in Santa Monica, is an obvious choice to serve as Yahoo’s ambassador to the studios. Before coming to Yahoo, he worked for 11 years at Warner Bros. with Yahoo Chief Executive Terry Semel, running the Entertaindom.com venture and serving as president of Warner Bros. Online.

Yahoo, which is expected to report second-quarter earnings today, declined to make Moloshok available for an interview.

Spokeswoman Joanna Stevens said Moloshok had managed Yahoo’s sports, entertainment and games groups in addition to trying to persuade studios to do more business with Yahoo.

As it became clear that Moloshok’s relationships with Hollywood were more important for Yahoo’s growth, he gave up his other duties, Stevens said.

Yahoo shares fell 72 cents to $33.22 on Nasdaq.