Yahoo! Gives Thumbs Up to Movie Deal

Online portal Yahoo Inc., which has been steadily signing deals designed to enhance its revenues, has inked a pact with Hollywood-based MovieTickets.com, an online ticketing and information service.

The deal will let visitors to Yahoo Movies purchase movie tickets online for several thousand movie screens at theaters that offer Internet ticketing throughout the United States and Canada.

In some cases, home-printed tickets will be available via MovieTickets.com’s list of at-home ticketing-enabled theaters.

Financial arrangements were not disclosed, but the deal would seem to be just another ingredient in the revenue pie that Yahoo has been busy assembling. Just last week a video conferencing service was announced and today the portal launched online training solutions from its business communications division, Yahoo Broadcast Services.

The new Training Management Studio is tailored to meet corporate needs for rapid online training for things like sales departments, new-hire training and new product introductions.

The new online movie ticketing feature is available on Yahoo Movies’ local showtimes pages.

“Online ticketing improves the entire movie-going experience,” said Doug Hirsch, senior director of Yahoo Entertainment. “The key for us was to provide our users with a service that truly complements Yahoo’s existing offering. People who use Yahoo Movies have come to expect fun content and innovative services from a variety of independent sources and MovieTickets.com fits the bill.”

MovieTickets.com is a joint venture among Hollywood Media Corp., AMC Entertainment, National Amusements, Famous Players, Marcus Theatre, Muvico Theaters, Hoyts Cinemas and Viacom.