Online ticket seller Fandango, a division of NBCUniversal, announced today that it is rebranding its on-demand video service M-GO as Fandango Now, effective March 30.
Fandango acquired M-GO in January from Technicolor and DreamWorks Animation for an undisclosed sum.
At the time, the company said that FandangoLabs – a research and development group focused on enhancing the moviegoing experience launched by Fandango in 2015 – would use the M-GO platform to create moviegoing products and services.
But, according to Fandango president Paul Yanover, the initial changes will be largely cosmetic.
“There’s been a lot of work in the last six weeks around enhancements in the UI,” Yanover told VideoInk. But,”at the core functional level, it is the M-G0 services you’re familiar with.”
Which means that Fandango Now will offer digital downloads of films for rental or purchase, along with many TV series the day after their on-air debuts, and it will be available through variety of connected, over-the-top and mobile devices including Android, iOS, Samsung, LG and Roku.
Source: forbes.com
Ultimately, Fandango Now is looking to create “an ease-of-use integrated solution,” Yanover said. “It’s very preliminary, but we’ll be looking to connect people’s accounts and their ability to bundle tickets and home entertainment.”
Later this year, Fandango Now plans to give users the option of pre-ordering digital downloads of the movie they’re buying tickets to see in the theater or catching up with previous franchise installments on VOD before going to see the latest sequel. It will also offer bonus content, collectible memorabilia and special fan experiences.
Last month, Fandango enterted itno an agreement to acquire social movie site Flixster and film rating site Rotten Tomatoes from Warner Bros. Entertainment. When the transaction is complete, the addition of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes, which reach 20 million unique visitors a month, will bring Fandango’s combined audience reach to more than 63 million monthly uniques.
Fandango also produces a slate of original online video series covering different aspects of the moviegoing experience via its Movieclips arm (acquired from Zefr in 2014), including “I Love Movies,” “Movie3Some,” “Weekend Ticket,” “FrontRunners,” “Mom’s Movie Minute” and “Reel Kids.”
In spite of all the extras Fandango has been adding, “we’re highly focused on our core business of ticketing,” Yanover said. “We look at this entire space as building around that core. It’s totally demand-driven. We’re looking at what consumers do, what consumers want and how do we serve their interests with a broader asset base.”
