Entertaindom Arrives

Cable World, April 17, 2000 by Karen Brown

What do you do if you oversee a vast realm of music, movies, creative talent and information and have the broadband pipe to back it up? You might just create an "entertaindom" unto itself on the Web.

That's just what Warner Bros. subsidiary Entertaindom has done with its Entertaindom. com site. The animation and video-loaded site debuted November with a raft of original and classic material aimed primarily at the growing broadband user market. Since then, it has ramped up to draw in 3.2 million unique visits per month.

It's not too hard to figure out the motivation. An October survey from CyberDialoge, a research firm, showed 73% of new Internet users go online to hunt for entertainment.

That's not in short supply on the Entertaindom site, where one can find original Web programming such as The God and Devil Show, a weekly animated talk show in which celebrities past and present are interviewed by the Almighty and Scratch. Online viewers can then vote to send the guest to heaven or hell.

The series, by the way, is not to be confused with the beleaguered God, the Devil and Bob TV show yanked by NBC after protests from affiliates in the Bible Belt.

"While God, the Devil and Bob is dead, the Web has different standards," an Entertaindom spokesman said. "People generally regard Web shows using an entirely different set of standards."

Also in the lineup is Dr. Science, a weekly 3-D animated show where the featured host and questionable expert answers - and in most cases badly answers - science questions. Online viewers can submit their own questions and await the mangled replies.

Entertaindom is readying for a new entry called Li'l Green Men, an animated serial from Pulse Entertainment. The show's about two miniature aliens assigned to explore the Earth.

Such content may some day find its way beyond the Web, and that's illustrated by a recent visit from Warner Bros. chairman/CEO Barry Meyer. He met with the Entertaindom staff to discuss how to best foster that crossover.

"Warner Brothers looks to Entertaindom to help foster born-on-the-Web content that could possibly cross over to other media platform," an Entertaindom spokesman said. "A number of content providers come to Entertaindom because of the Warner Brothers connection. They see us working with the studio and are excited about using Entertaindom as an incubator for new forms of content."

Part of the Entertaindom universe includes new Time Warner products brought over to the Web. That includes the 3-D weekly short episodic flick Superman: the Menace of Metallo and a revival of Marvin the Martian, a 1950s toon produced by Pulse Entertainment that originally had only five episodes.

Entertaindom drops in entertainment for Web viewers from traditional media sources. Tapping the vast Warner Bros. animation library, the site offers Looney Tunes Cartoon Cinema, a selection of full-length classic toons, including some never seen. From Warner's music division comes a supply of music videos from artists signed with subsidiaries Elektra, Atlantic, Warner Bros. Records and Maverick.

The Entertaindom site is devoted to information and Web services. That includes a Looney Tunes Teach the Internet area where Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam teach Web novices about the Internet. An eBay co-hosted area also lets viewers bid on entertainment items in a virtual auction.

The site has access to entertainment news from Entertainment Weekly, CNN, Reuters and Variety.