Yahoo Leadership Meeting Tomorrow; Premium Music Services to be "De-emphasized"
I’m hoping we’ll have the opportunity to live blog the event via one of our sources, which we did the last time one of these was held. Yahoo PR has confirmed to me that the meeting is happening, saying:
Jerry Yang and Sue Decker are committed to making significant changes in the way Yahoo! operates to improve execution and build a winning culture. They are very focused on motivating and aligning key leaders throughout the company to achieve a clear set of goals, and tomorrow’s senior management meeting will be an important step in that direction.
Separately, the company will shortly (today) be announcing a strategic shift away from premium services in the music groupin Vince Broady’s entertainment group, which includes music, games, TV, movies, OMG. Nothing will be shut down; however, people and money (marketing dollars) are moving to other areas of Yahoo. The company will focus on free content over premium services, which are not performing well (music subscription sales in particular are said to be lagging). The changes have been occurring over the last week, look for a Yahoo announcement later today.
Update: Yahoo blog post here discusses streamlining of entertainment group, although they are not talking much about defocusing on premium services. Yahoo PR commented to us: “Yahoo! remains committed to the media priorities of its Santa Monica offices, where these businesses maintain important relationships with key media partners.”