In fact, Bartz practically sounded like a gushy “Entertainment Tonight” flunky when talking to Wall Street analysts about Yahoo’s Oscar news, games and other offerings. She proudly noted the site’s efforts generated more than a billion pages views.

There will be more of that, it seems, with the elevation of Yahoo exec Sam Silverstein (pictured here) as head of its special events coverage. Sources said it will be a major area of emphasis, given obvious advertiser interest.

It’s all part of a lot of dramatic changes being made in the media unit at Yahoo, which is run by its newish Audience head Mickie Rosen.

Previous to his new duties, Silverstein has been mostly focused on major sports events for Yahoo, but has also been managing content on its front page and in tech and green arenas.

The move to taking over more comes after Lawrence Yee–who led Yahoo entertainment efforts and was once the managing editor of its omg! celebrity site–headed to TMZ.com, the competing and much sassier celebrity site, owned by AOL. His new job is as managing editor of its TooFab site, TMZ overlord Harvey Levin confirmed to me.

Also gone recently is Annette Cardwell, who was managing editor of Yahoo’s Shine women’s site, who is now working as director of digital content and games at Future US, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Now it will be up to Silverstein, who is well-regarded at Yahoo, to run the upcoming Royal Wedding coverage by himself.

William and Kate, as well as Bartz, will be watching.

Oh, it’s coming.

According to several sources, and as has been widely expected, Apple will once again be holding its annual autumn special event, possibly closer to mid-September this time.

Apple (AAPL), which has had a fall hello-there confab every year since 2005, waited until August 31 last year to announce its “Let’s Rock” event on September 9 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco.

There, CEO Steve Jobs, in his first public appearance since his medical leave of absence, let loose with a bunch of mostly music-focused features.

That included introducing iTunes 9, as well as home sharing, Genius mixes and some updates of the iPod.

“I’m vertical, back at Apple and loving every day of it,” said Jobs last year.

Well, he’s still standing, but he has definitely not stood still, launching both the iPad and the iPhone 4 since then.

Still, because it is Apple, speculation is running high about what the iconic tech company will unveil next.

And most of it centers around the blinging of the iPod touch to bring it into line with many of the features on the iPhone.

That is likely to include front- and rear-facing cameras, which would allow the device to use FaceTime, Apple video-calling software that works over Wi-Fi.

With Jobs promising Apple would release the FaceTime protocol as a open industry standard, combined with the company’s ongoing skirmish with Google (GOOG) in the smartphone space, wouldn’t it be nice to have all those iPods turn into phones?

There could also be an A4 processor in the iPod, which will give it even more oomph.

Other rumors run the gamut, such as a new cloud-based, streamy rethink of Apple TV (possible and exciting), a smaller iPad (silly and unlikely) and a streaming music service (useful and most likely).

Or, because it is Apple, something else.

Oh, one more thing: It goes without saying that Apple PR majordomos passed on my perfectly reasonable request for the entire detailed schedule, including slides, for any special event in September.

Here are some other options, via Jimmy Kimmel’s post-finale special. A little disappointing that there’s no Bobby Ewing dream season reference here, but whatever. And if the YouTube link here goes dead, let me know and I’ll try to find you another one.