Company:Fandango Media

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Fandango Media, LLC
Formerlyticketmakers.com (2000–2007)
TypeJoint venture
FoundedApril 27, 2000; 25 years ago (2000-04-27)
FounderJames Michael Cline
Headquarters
Beverly Hills, California
,
United States
OwnersVersant (75%)
Warner Bros. Discovery (25%)[1]
Divisions
Websitefandango.com
Footnotes / references
[2][3][4][5]

Fandango Media, LLC is an American ticketing company that sells movie tickets via its website and its mobile app. It also owns Fandango at Home (formerly owned by Walmart and originally known as Vudu), a streaming digital video store and streaming service, and Rotten Tomatoes, a website that provides television and streaming media information. It is a joint venture between Versant and Warner Bros. Discovery.

History

In 2000, James Michael Cline, with Art Levitt, founded Fandango.[6] In 2003, Fandango secured $15 million in funding from venture capitalists Technology Crossover Ventures.[7] Fandango was privately held.[8] Then-owners included exhibition chains (Loews Cineplex Entertainment, Regal Cinemas, Carmike Cinemas, Cinemark Theatres, General Cinema Theatres, Edwards Theatres and Century Theatres[8]) and venture capital firms (Accretive Technology Partners and General Atlantic Partners).

On April 11, 2007, Comcast acquired Fandango, with plans to integrate it into a new entertainment website called "Fancast.com", set to launch the summer of 2007.[9] In June 2008, the domain Movies.com was acquired from Disney.[10] In March 2012, Fandango announced a partnership with Yahoo! Movies, making Fandango the official online and mobile ticketer for registered users of the Yahoo! service.[11] That October, Paul Yanover was named President of Fandango.[12]

Fandango made its first international acquisition in September 2015 when it bought the Brazilian ticketing company Ingresso, which provides ticketing to a variety of Brazilian entertainment events, including the biannual Rock in Rio festival.[13] On January 29, 2016, Fandango announced its acquisition of M-GO,[14] a joint venture between Technicolor SA and DreamWorks Animation (NBCUniversal acquired the latter company three months later),[15] which it would later rebrand as "FandangoNOW".[16]

Ticket to Star Wars: The Force Awakens

In February 2016, Fandango announced its acquisition of Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes from Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment. As part of the deal, Warner Bros. would become a 30% shareholder of the combined Fandango company.[17][18] Its stake was reduced to 25% by 2019.[1]

In December 2016, Fandango Media purchased Cinepapaya, a Peru-based website for purchasing movie tickets, for an undisclosed amount.[19] Later that same month, Fandango moved to Fox Interactive Media's former headquarters in Beverly Hills.[20] On April 20, 2020, Walmart entered into an agreement to sell Vudu to Fandango Media.[21] The sale was completed on July 6, 2020.[22] Vudu was rebranded as Fandango at Home in 2024. On July 16, 2024, Fandango founder J. Michael Cline committed suicide at the age of 64.[23][24]

Services

Fandango's website also offers exclusive film clips, trailers, celebrity interviews, reviews by users, movie descriptions, and some web-based games to Fandango members.[25] As of March 5, 2015, Fandango provides members the ability to refund or exchange their orders up to 2 hours before the showtime of their film.[26][27] Fandango's Android app was listed among Techland's 50 Best Android Applications for 2013.[28]

Competition

Until its acquisition of its rival MovieTickets.com in 2017, Fandango was one of three major online advance movie ticket sale sites, along with MovieTickets.com and Atom Tickets. Before being acquired by Comcast in April 2007, Fandango was privately owned; its major stakeholder, Regal Cinemas, which owned the United Artists and Hoyts theater chains, was the second largest movie-theater chain in the U.S. Regal and its partners founded Fandango partly to prevent the older MovieTickets.com from establishing a monopoly on phone and online ticketing services. (MovieTickets.com was publicly owned and traded under the stock symbol HOLL.[29]) The company's advertising agency reportedly chose the name "Fandango" because it sounded "fun, kinetic and smart", and "easily pronounce[d] and remember[ed]--even though it really has nothing to do with movies."[30]

Prior to 2012, Fandango did not provide online ticketing for many AMC Theatres. However, it provided online ticketing for AMC Theatres that were originally part of the Loews Cineplex Entertainment chain, due to contractual obligations in place prior to the 2005 merger of the two movie chains.[31] Loews had previously attempted to break the contract in 2002 under pressure of bankruptcy and from (then) AOL Moviefone and its partner, Loews' Cineplex subsidiary; Fandango successfully sued both Loews and Moviefone and retained Loews' business.[32] As of February 8, 2012, Fandango began providing ticketing for all AMC Theatres in the US,[33] after which MovieTickets.com's fellow shareholders sued AMC for breach of contract.[34] AMC and MovieTickets.com settled in 2013, with an agreement that the theater chain's online ticketing would be available on both Fandango and MovieTickets.com.[35] In May 2012, Fandango announced a partnership with Moviefone, MovieTickets.com's former partner.[36][37] Atom Tickets, a movie ticketing app and website launched in 2014, has been called a "serious competitor" of Fandango's.[38][39]

Controversies

In July 2009, it was revealed that Fandango and other websites, including buy.com and Orbitz, were linked with controversial Web loyalty programs, also known as post-transaction marketers. Fandango reportedly gave the third party access to Fandango customers' credit cards.[40] In December 2013, Fandango launched a trademark dispute when WWE tried to trademark the name for use by the professional wrestler Fandango (né Johnny Curtis).[41]

In August 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved final orders settling charges against Fandango for misrepresenting to the public the security of their mobile app and for failing to protect the transmission of Fandango customers' sensitive personal information.[42] The Fandango mobile app assured consumers, during checkout, that their credit card information was stored and transmitted securely.[43] However, the FTC claims against Fandango focused on failures relating to both the implementation and testing of the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates for 4 years following the mobile app's launch in March 2009. According to the FTC, Fandango commissioned security audits in 2011, but the audits were limited in scope and did not review the security of the app's transmission of information. The FTC also alleged that Fandango did not implement effective channels for security complaints and instead relied on its general customer service system to handle security vulnerability reporting.[44]

Rotten Tomatoes has received several criticisms relating to its scoring. In October 2015, FiveThirtyEight published a story and podcast calling Fandango's metrics on user ratings into question.[45][46] The investigation noted that the site's method for calculating ratings made it rare for a movie to ever receive an overall rating below three stars.[47] The problem seemingly extended from Fandango's habit of rounding ratings up to the nearest half.[48] Fandango, in response, noted that this was a glitch it was working to repair.[48] Nevertheless, Gizmodo cited the study after Fandango announced the purchase of Rotten Tomatoes amid fears that the purchase would "ruin" the site.[49] Other complaints have concerned apparent political bias, with an analysis of Rotten Tomatoes scores seemingly preferencing films which exhibit progressive values and down-rating conservative ones.[50] Other criticisms suggest score manipulation for commercial reasons: in 2012, 32 million audience votes suddenly appeared for the Star Wars film 'Revenge of the Sith', in what was called by Screenrant "a clear example of nefarious manipulation".[51]

In December 2017, Fandango received hundreds of complaints regarding its delivery of Star Wars: The Last Jedi tickets. Forbes reported that issues began within hours of advanced sales' becoming available for the new Star Wars film, with customers complaining of long wait times and website glitches.[52]

Fandango Latam

Fandango Latam
FormerlyCinepapaya
TypeDivision
Founded2012; 14 years ago (2012)
Defunct2020; 6 years ago (2020)
HeadquartersLima, Peru
ServicesMovie ticketing and content
ParentFandango Media
Websitefandango.lat
Cinepapaya founders Manuel Olguin and Gary Urteaga at TNW Conference Latin America 2012.

Fandango Latam, previously known as Cinepapaya, was a movie ticket-selling website that served as the Latin American arm of Fandango Media.

Cinepapaya was first launched in 2012, receiving funding from 500 Startups and Telefonica‘s startup accelerator Wayra.[53] It participated also in the Start-Up Chile’s acceleration program.

In 2014, Cinepapaya received a $2M investment from Brazilian internet conglomerate Movile.[54] As of May 2015, Cinepapaya was transactional in Peru, Chile and Colombia, and served content in 17 countries in South America (as for May 2015), expecting to close 2015 with 20 countries,[55] and then venture into other emerging markets.

In December 2016, Fandango Media purchased Cinepapaya, for an undisclosed amount.[19] Fandango had previously acquired Cinepapaya's Brazilian competitor Ingresso in 2015, and merged the two entities to create Fandango Latam.[56] In March 2017, Fandango announced a new branding strategy for its Latin American assets, and definitively rebranded Cinepapaya to Fandango Latam.[57]

In October 2018, Fandango Latam announced several multi-year deals with Cinépolis, Cinemark Theatres, National Amusements, and Cinemex, adding 5,000 new screens to Fandango's Latin American inventory. This deal turned Fandango into the largest online ticketer in Latin America.[56]

Fandango announced their exit from the Latin American market in 2020, as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cinema industry. This notably excluded the operation of the ticket merchant Ingresso in Brazil, which would later be acquired by Universo Online.[58]


Video on demand

In early 2016, Fandango acquired M-GO,[14] which was re-branded as FandangoNOW.[16] Fandango later purchased Vudu from Walmart in July 2020.[59] FandangoNOW was then merged with Vudu on August 3, 2021.[60] While Fandango initially chose to keep the "Vudu" name for brand recognition as the larger of the two services[61], it would eventually be renamed to Fandango at Home on February 15, 2024.[62]

In June 2023,  AMC Theatres (which has been a long-time partner of Fandango's online movie ticketing service) announced that Vudu would subsume its AMC Theatres On Demand service, with its library being transferred to the platform and upgraded to higher quality formats where applicable.[63]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Spangler, Todd (2020-10-22). "How Fandango Leaned Into Streaming When Pandemic Theater Closures Hammered Its Ticket Biz". https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/fandango-vudu-streaming-pandemic-1234812244/. "NBCU doesn't break out financials for Fandango (in which WarnerMedia retains about a 25% stake)." 
  2. ↑ "TicketMakers.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". http://whois.domaintools.com/ticketmakers.com. 
  3. ↑ "Fandango Acquires Rotten Tomatoes & Flixster – Deadline". February 17, 2016. https://deadline.com/2016/02/fandango-acquires-rotten-tomatoes-flixster-1201704373/. 
  4. ↑ "NBCUniversal's Fandango Acquires Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes". February 17, 2016. http://www.nbcuniversal.com/article/nbcuniversals-fandango-acquires-flixster-and-rotten-tomatoes. 
  5. ↑ "Privacy Policy". http://www.fandango.com/policies/privacy-policy. 
  6. ↑ Saperstein, Pat (July 18, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dies After Falling From New York Hotel". https://variety.com/2024/film/news/j-michael-cline-dead-fandango-founder-jumped-off-hotel-1236076223/. 
  7. ↑ Bloom, David (9 January 2003). "Fandango to finger funding of $15 mil". Variety. https://variety.com/2003/digital/news/fandango-to-finger-funding-of-15-mil-1117878435/. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Goldsmith, Jill (7 June 2000). "Exhibs give Fandango tix name a whirl". Variety. https://variety.com/2000/digital/news/exhibs-give-fandango-tix-name-a-whirl-1117782303/. 
  9. ↑ "Comcast Adds Fandango". AdWeek. April 12, 2007. http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising/comcast-adds-fandango-88613. 
  10. ↑ "Fandango acquires Movies.com". Los Angeles Times. June 24, 2008. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-jun-24-fi-movies24-story.html. 
  11. ↑ "Fandango Wins Yahoo Movies Deal Over Rival MovieTickets.com". TechCrunch. March 19, 2012. https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/19/fandango-wins-yahoo-movies-deal-over-rival-movietickets-com/. 
  12. ↑ Faughnder, Ryan. "He's led Fandango's ambitious expansion beyond movie ticket sales". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-0410-ct-how-i-made-it-20160410-story.html. 
  13. ↑ Spangler, Todd (2015-09-25). "NBCU's Fandango Acquires Brazilian Ticketing Site Ingresso" (in en). https://variety.com/2015/digital/global/fandango-acquires-brazil-ingresso-1201602564/. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Fandango buys online video retailer M-Go to boost 'super ticket' sales". Los Angeles Times. January 29, 2016. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-fandango-buys-mgo-20160129-story.html. 
  15. ↑ "Comcast is buying Dreamworks in a $3.8 billion acquisition". The Washington Post. 28 April 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/04/28/comcast-is-buying-dreamworks-in-a-3-8-billion-acquisition/. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Longwell, Todd. "Fandango Re-Branding M-GO On-Demand Service as FandangoNOW". http://www.thevideoink.com/news/fandango-re-branding-m-go-demand-service-fandango-now/. 
  17. ↑ "Fandango Buys Flixster And Rotten Tomatoes". TechCrunch. February 17, 2016. https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/17/fandango-buys-flixster-rotten-tomatoes/. 
  18. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster Acquired By Fandango" (in en-US). February 17, 2016. https://www.slashfilm.com/rotten-tomatoes-fandango-flixster/. 
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Comcast's Fandango Buys Online Ticket-Seller Cinepapaya". Fortune. 2016-12-01. http://fortune.com/2016/12/01/comcast-fandango-cinepapaya/. 
  20. ↑ Solomon, Daina Beth (21 December 2016). "Fandango Moving to Larger Headquarters in Beverly Hills". Los Angeles Business Journal. https://labusinessjournal.com/news/2016/dec/21/fandango-moving-larger-headquarters-beverly-hills/. 
  21. ↑ Rizzo, Lillian (20 April 2020). "NBCUniversal's Fandango to Buy Walmart's Vudu Streaming Service". Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/nbcuniversals-fandango-to-buy-walmarts-vudu-streaming-service-11587415960. 
  22. ↑ "Vudu is Now Officially Part of the Fandango Family". July 6, 2020. https://www.xanjero.com/news/fandangos-acquisition-of-vudu-is-complete/. 
  23. ↑ Saunders, Angel (July 17, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dead at 64". People. https://people.com/fandango-founder-j-michael-cline-dead-at-64-8679774. Retrieved July 18, 2024. 
  24. ↑ Saperstein, Pat (July 17, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dies After Falling From New York Hotel". Variety. https://variety.com/2024/film/news/j-michael-cline-dead-fandango-founder-jumped-off-hotel-1236076223/. Retrieved July 18, 2024. 
  25. ↑ "Site INdex". https://www.fandango.com/site-index/. 
  26. ↑ "Cancel My Reservation Times". October 2019. https://www.fandango.com/cancel-my-reservation-192910/movie-times. 
  27. ↑ "Ticket Policy". October 2019. https://www.fandango.com/policies/movie-ticket-policy. 
  28. ↑ Newman, Jared (July 1, 2013). "50 Best Android Apps for 2013". Techland. https://techland.time.com/2013/07/01/50-best-android-apps-for-2013/slide/pulse-news/. 
  29. ↑ "FANDANGO TO ACQUIRE POPULAR ONLINE TICKETER MOVIETICKETS.COM, CREATING GLOBAL SUITE OF MOVIE TICKETING PROPERTIES WITH MISSION OF GETTING MORE MOVIEGOERS INTO THEATERS WORLDWIDE". PRNewswire (Press release). Fandango. October 13, 2017.
  30. ↑ "Why is it called Fandango?". October 29, 2014. https://www.rewindandcapture.com/why-is-it-called-fandango/. 
  31. ↑ "AMC-Loews merger could shake up online movie ticketers Fandango and MovieTickets.com". Seeking Alpha. June 23, 2005. http://seekingalpha.com/article/334-amc-loews-merger-could-shake-up-online-movie-ticketers-fandango-and-movietickets-com-holl-goog-msft-twx-yhoo. 
  32. ↑ "Fandango Heads Off An End Run". InternetNews.com. August 2, 2002. http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/1438501. 
  33. ↑ "Fandango, AMC Theatres announce newly expanded partnership". February 8, 2012. http://www.fandango.com/movieblog/fandangoamctheatresannouncenewlyexpandedpartnership-698047.html. 
  34. ↑ "MovieTickets.com suing AMC setting up Fandango deal". February 8, 2012. https://www.cinemablend.com/new/MovieTickets-com-Suing-AMC-Setting-Up-Fandango-Deal-29316.html. 
  35. ↑ McNary, Dave (January 21, 2014). "AMC Comes on Board MovieTickets.com Following Suit Settlement". Variety. https://variety.com/2014/film/news/amc-comes-on-board-movietickets-com-following-suit-settlement-1201066425/. 
  36. ↑ "Fandango and Moviefone dial up new partnership". Los Angeles Times. May 23, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-fandango-20120523,0,812900.story. 
  37. ↑ "Fandango and Moviefone partner for ticket sales". Reuters. May 23, 2012. http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/13767140/fandango-and-moviefone-partner-for-ticket-sales/. 
  38. ↑ Barnes, Brooks (2016-12-04). "A Movie Ticketing Start-Up Hopes to Fill Empty Seats". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/business/media/movie-ticketing-start-up-atom-tickets-hopes-to-fill-theaters.html. 
  39. ↑ "Atom Tickets Lobs Bomb at Fandango, MovieTickets.com". http://www.bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2016/04/27/atom-tickets-lobs-bomb-at-fandango-movietickets.html. 
  40. ↑ "Buy.com, Orbitz linked to controversial marketers". CNET. July 24, 2009. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10293633-93.html. 
  41. ↑ "Another Tribute to the Tropps: Fandango WWE Issues". eWrestlingNews. http://www.ewrestlingnews.com/news/another-tribute-to-the-troops-photo-fandango-wwe-issues. 
  42. ↑ Harris, Meena (August 21, 2014). "FTC Settlement Requires Fandango and Credit Karma to Establish Comprehensive Security Programs to Protect Consumers' Sensitive Personal Information". The National Law Review (Covington & Burling LLP). https://www.natlawreview.com/article/ftc-settlement-requires-fandango-and-credit-karma-to-establish-comprehensive-securit. 
  43. ↑ "Fandango, Credit Karma Settle FTC Charges that They Deceived Consumers By Failing to Securely Transmit Sensitive Personal Information". Federal Trade Commission. March 28, 2014. http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/03/fandango-credit-karma-settle-ftc-charges-they-deceived-consumers. 
  44. ↑ LaRose, Cynthia J.; Romero, Jake (March 4, 2014). "Stop Phoning It in on Mobile Security: What Your Business Needs to Know About the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Settlements with Fandango and Credit Karma". The National Law Review. ISSN 2161-3362. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/stop-phoning-it-mobile-security-what-your-business-needs-to-know-about-federal-trade. Retrieved August 24, 2014. 
  45. ↑ Hickey, Walt (2015-10-15). "Be Suspicious Of Online Movie Ratings, Especially Fandango's" (in en-US). https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fandango-movies-ratings/. 
  46. ↑ Avirgan, Jody (2015-10-22). "Rating Subjective Experiences Is Hard, But Fandango Is Really Bad At It" (in en-US). https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rating-subjective-experiences-is-hard-but-fandango-is-really-bad-at-it/. 
  47. ↑ Machkovech, Sam (October 15, 2015). "FiveThirtyEight analysis finds inflated, rounded-up reviews at Fandango". https://arstechnica.com/business/2015/10/fivethirtyeight-analysis-finds-inflated-rounded-up-reviews-at-fandango/. 
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Plaugic, Lizzie (October 15, 2015). "You probably should ignore Fandango movie ratings". https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/15/9545427/fandango-movie-reviews-inflated-stars. 
  49. ↑ Novak, Matt (February 17, 2016). "Fandango Buys Rotten Tomatoes But Will Probably Ruin It". https://gizmodo.com/fandango-will-probably-ruin-rotten-tomatoes-1759743925. 
  50. ↑ "Graphing Rotten Tomatoes' Political Bias". https://medium.com/@centerissexy/graphing-rotten-tomatoes-political-bias-957e43986461. 
  51. ↑ "Rotten Tomatoes' New Audience Rating System Is Even Worse". March 3, 2019. https://screenrant.com/rotten-tomatoes-audience-score-changes-worse/. 
  52. ↑ "Stars Wars the Last Jedi Tickets Fandango". Forbes. https://fortune.com/2017/10/10/star-wars-the-last-jedi-pre-sale-tickets-fandango/. 
  53. ↑ Heim, Anna (2012-12-14). "Peruvian movie portal Cinepapaya announces funding from 500 Startups, eyes Latin America" (in en). https://thenextweb.com/news/peruvian-movie-portal-cinepapaya-announces-funding-from-500-startups-eyes-latin-america. 
  54. ↑ Shieber, Jonathan (2014-10-20). "Movile, Brazil's Answer To Rocket Internet, Backs Mobile Ticketing Co. CinePapaya With $2M" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2014/10/20/movile-brazils-answer-to-rocket-internet-backs-mobile-ticketing-co-cinepapaya-with-2m/. 
  55. ↑ "Editing Fandango Latam - Wikipedia" (in en). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandango_Latam. 
  56. ↑ 56.0 56.1 Lang, Brent (2018-10-22). "Fandango Becomes Largest Online Ticketer in Latin America (EXCLUSIVE)" (in en-US). https://variety.com/2018/film/news/fandango-latin-america-cinepolis-1202987694/. 
  57. ↑ "Fandango unveils new global brand strategy for Latin America" (in en-US). http://www.thedrum.com/news/fandango-unveils-new-global-brand-strategy-latin-america. 
  58. ↑ "Ingresso.com Rebrands and Plans To Grow Even Larger in Brazil" (in en-US). https://celluloidjunkie.com/digest/ingresso-com-rebrands-and-plans-to-grow-even-larger-in-brazil/. 
  59. ↑ Lipman, Ashley (2020-07-06). "Vudu is Now Officially Part of the Fandango Family" (in en). http://www.xanjero.com/news/fandangos-acquisition-of-vudu-is-complete/. 
  60. ↑ "FandangoNOW and Vudu merge into a new streaming service with titles to rent, buy or stream free". August 3, 2021. https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/03/fandangonow-and-vudu-merge-into-a-new-streaming-service-with-titles-to-rent-buy-or-stream-free/. 
  61. ↑ "Fandango chooses Vudu as the way forward for its streaming business". 2021-08-03. https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/3/22607391/vudu-fandango-now-combining-roku-movies-tv. 
  62. ↑ "Vudu Is Becoming Fandango At Home" (in en). 2024-02-15. https://www.fandango.com/movie-news/vudu-is-becoming-fandango-at-home-755026. 
  63. ↑ Forristal, Lauren (2023-06-01). "AMC and Vudu score big with new on-demand streaming partnership" (in en-US). https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/01/amc-and-vudu-score-big-with-new-on-demand-streaming-partnership/. 

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