Web portal, Yahoo, recently launched broadcasting services that will help businesses deliver corporate conferences, trade shows and other events over the Web.

Yahoo has two packages. Virtual Conference provides live or on-demand viewing via the Web that can be accessed by thousand of individuals at numerous locations worldwide. The service can be customised to run, for example, a pay-per-view broadcast or include interactive tools for a question-and-answer section.

The other service, dubbed Executive Communication Centre-Breaking News Channel, lets companies Webcast a breaking news event, such as an acquisition.

The service underscores the latest efforts by Yahoo to bolster its revenues. To that end, the Sunnyvale, California-based company has been charging for some of its services that were once free, including its personal ads and auction listings.

Unlike these consumer services, Yahoo’s new broadcasting services come at a hefty price. The Virtual Conference Centre costs about $350,000 for five conferences. The second service costs $250,000 for five events. Yahoo is betting companies will take advantage of the services as a way to increase participation, especially in situations where people cannot travel to an event itself, especially in the face of this month’s terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

“We’re trying to help businesses maintain critical communications,” said Jim Lewand-owski, vice president-sales, business and enterprise services at Yahoo. “While events in New York have really heightened the activity in this regard, it was something that was already beginning to build as the economy turned down because of cost-savings of using Internet broadcasting to facilitate communications to a large number of attendees.”