Time waits for no man, but it appears the three men at the top of Entertaindom.com are not about to wait to learn their fate in the merging of parent Time Warner and America Online.
       What they've learned so far has been enough to cause them to quit. 
      The discouraging news: A planned IPO that  presumably would have made them oodles in stock options has reportedly been called off as part of the reorganization of Time Warner as it prepares for the AOL merger.
   All but out are Entertaindom president and chief executive officer Jim Moloshok, executive vice president and chief development officer Jim Banister, and senior vice president and chief operations officer Jeff Weiner.
    All three have  emptied out their offices and told employees that they had resigned from their positions, according to a source close to Entertaindom.com.
      Their departures are just the latest in a slew of exits from Time Warner's various internet properties.
      According to insiders, the company has become a major poaching ground for internet talent following a string of missteps and zigzags in its long struggle to craft a coherent internet strategy.
       Entertainmdom.com was launched last year as part of an effort to bring under one roof Time Warner's scattered web properties, including its long-troubled Pathfinder network of sites. 
     The goal was an ambitious one--to leverage Time Warner's preeminence as a leading publishing and entertainment company. 
     At the center was Entertaindom.com, offering web users entertainment information and access to a vast library of cartoons and films.
     In its early months, the web unit was under the Warner Bros. umbrella, then it was put under Time Digital.  
    "Entertaindom.com was originally developed as a division of Warner Brothers," explains a company spokesperson. "When it was launched in late November it became part of Time Digital. They wanted this to be their entertainment hub, like CNN became the news hub. It was part of their strategy."
      That strategy began to change, however, with the announced merger with AOL.
    Several weeks ago, Time Warner brass announced that Kevin Tsujihara, senior vice president for strategic planning, had been named to head Time Warner New Media and that Entertaindom.com was now under his command.
      "Time Digital obviously has changed," she says, "so Entertaindom.com is back under Warner Brothers’ oversight. That necessitated that we have to hire the Time Digital people by renegotiating their contracts or offering them employment packages." 
    And there came the rub. The shift to the new structure reportedly put the kibosh on plans for an IPO in which all three stood to gain handsomely on stock options.
    Officially at least, Time Warner says it is continuing to negotiate with the three executives, and a spokespersons says reports of their departure are premature.
    "We are currently in negotiations with the three gentlemen," she says, "they have not jumped ship. Our negotiations with them are going very well."
     She claims that an IPO was never part of the company’s original offer to employees.
     None of the three executives is believed to have another job lined up, and insiders say they may well agree to stay on if the company enriches their compensation packages.

-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.

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