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Fandango Media

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Fandango Media, LLC
Formerlyticketmakers.com (2000–2007)
Company typeJoint venture
FoundedApril 27, 2000; 24 years ago (2000-04-27)
FounderJames Michael Cline
Headquarters
Beverly Hills, California
,
United States
OwnersNBCUniversal (75%) (pending spin-off into SpinCo)
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 their website and their mobile app. It also owns Fandango at Home (formerly known as Vudu), a streaming digital video store and streaming service, as well as Rotten Tomatoes, which provides television and streaming media information.

History

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In 2000, 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, Vudu announced it has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Fandango Media.[21] The sale was completed on July 6, 2020.[22]

On July 16, 2024, Fandango founder J. Michael Cline died by suicide at the age of 64.[23][24]

Services

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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

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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

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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]

Video on demand

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In early 2016, Fandango acquired M-GO,[14] which was re-branded FandangoNOW.[16] Fandango later purchased Vudu in July 2020.[53] FandangoNOW later merged with Vudu on August 3, 2021.[54] Fandango chose to retain the "Vudu" name as it was the larger service with a loyal customer base.[55]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Spangler, Todd (October 22, 2020). "How Fandango Leaned Into Streaming When Pandemic Theater Closures Hammered Its Ticket Biz". Variety. Retrieved May 8, 2023. NBCU doesn't break out financials for Fandango (in which WarnerMedia retains about a 25% stake).
  2. ^ "TicketMakers.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. Archived from the original on July 13, 2017. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  3. ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 17, 2016). "Fandango Acquires Rotten Tomatoes & Flixster – Deadline". Deadline. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  4. ^ "NBCUniversal's Fandango Acquires Flixster and Rotten Tomatoes". NBC Universal. February 17, 2016. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved February 21, 2016.
  5. ^ "Privacy Policy". Fandango. Archived from the original on November 24, 2018. Retrieved June 16, 2016.
  6. ^ Saperstein, Pat (July 18, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dies After Falling From New York Hotel". Variety.
  7. ^ Bloom, David (January 9, 2003). "Fandango to finger funding of $15 mil". Variety. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  8. ^ a b Goldsmith, Jill (June 7, 2000). "Exhibs give Fandango tix name a whirl". Variety. Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  9. ^ Wallenstein, Andrew (April 12, 2007). "Comcast Adds Fandango". AdWeek. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  10. ^ Chmielewski, Dawn C. (June 24, 2008). "Fandango acquires Movies.com". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on September 18, 2018. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  11. ^ Perez, Sarah (March 19, 2012). "Fandango Wins Yahoo Movies Deal Over Rival MovieTickets.com". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2017.
  12. ^ Faughnder, Ryan. "He's led Fandango's ambitious expansion beyond movie ticket sales". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 23, 2019. Retrieved May 9, 2019.
  13. ^ Spangler, Todd (September 25, 2015). "NBCU's Fandango Acquires Brazilian Ticketing Site Ingresso". Variety. Archived from the original on July 13, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2019.
  14. ^ a b Faughnder, Ryan (January 29, 2016). "Fandango buys online video retailer M-Go to boost 'super ticket' sales". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved January 29, 2016.
  15. ^ "Comcast is buying Dreamworks in a $3.8 billion acquisition". Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 29, 2016. Retrieved May 1, 2016.
  16. ^ a b Longwell, Todd. "Fandango Re-Branding M-GO On-Demand Service as FandangoNOW". Videolink. Archived from the original on September 15, 2016. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  17. ^ Ha, Anthony (February 17, 2016). "Fandango Buys Flixster And Rotten Tomatoes". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved February 17, 2016.
  18. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes and Flixster Acquired By Fandango". Slashfilm. February 17, 2016. Archived from the original on February 18, 2016. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  19. ^ "Comcast's Fandango Buys Online Ticket-Seller Cinepapaya". Fortune. December 1, 2016. Archived from the original on December 2, 2016. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
  20. ^ Solomon, Daina Beth (December 21, 2016). "Fandango Moving to Larger Headquarters in Beverly Hills". Los Angeles Business Journal. Archived from the original on November 19, 2021. Retrieved November 15, 2019.
  21. ^ Rizzo, Lillian (April 20, 2020). "NBCUniversal's Fandango to Buy Walmart's Vudu Streaming Service". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  22. ^ "Vudu is Now Officially Part of the Fandango Family". July 6, 2020. Archived from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
  23. ^ Saunders, Angel (July 17, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dead at 64". People. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  24. ^ Saperstein, Pat (July 17, 2024). "Fandango Founder J. Michael Cline Dies After Falling From New York Hotel". Variety. Retrieved July 18, 2024.
  25. ^ "Site INdex". Fandango.com. Archived from the original on April 23, 2022. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  26. ^ "Cancel My Reservation Times". Fandango.com. October 2019. Archived from the original on July 31, 2020. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  27. ^ "Ticket Policy". Fandango.com. October 2019. Archived from the original on April 20, 2022. Retrieved October 12, 2019.
  28. ^ Newman, Jared (July 1, 2013). "50 Best Android Apps for 2013". Techland. Archived from the original on July 4, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2016.
  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. ^ Lang, Adam (October 29, 2014). "Why is it called Fandango?". RewindandCapture.com. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2014.
  31. ^ Jackson, David (June 23, 2005). "AMC-Loews merger could shake up online movie ticketers Fandango and MovieTickets.com". Seeking Alpha. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  32. ^ Cox, Beth (August 2, 2002). "Fandango Heads Off An End Run". InternetNews.com. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  33. ^ "Fandango, AMC Theatres announce newly expanded partnership". Fandango. February 8, 2012. Archived from the original on August 29, 2023. Retrieved February 8, 2012.
  34. ^ Rich, Katey (February 8, 2012). "MovieTickets.com suing AMC setting up Fandango deal". CinemaBlend.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2022. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  35. ^ McNary, Dave (January 21, 2014). "AMC Comes on Board MovieTickets.com Following Suit Settlement". Variety. Archived from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved May 13, 2015.
  36. ^ Verrier, Richard (May 23, 2012). "Fandango and Moviefone dial up new partnership". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on August 29, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  37. ^ Shaw, Lucas (May 23, 2012). "Fandango and Moviefone partner for ticket sales". Reuters. Archived from the original on July 16, 2012. Retrieved July 16, 2012.
  38. ^ Barnes, Brooks (December 4, 2016). "A Movie Ticketing Start-Up Hopes to Fill Empty Seats". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 9, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  39. ^ "Atom Tickets Lobs Bomb at Fandango, MovieTickets.com". www.bizjournals.com. Archived from the original on March 16, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  40. ^ Sandoval, Greg (July 24, 2009). "Buy.com, Orbitz linked to controversial marketers". CNET. Archived from the original on January 27, 2013. Retrieved April 29, 2011.
  41. ^ "Another Tribute to the Tropps: Fandango WWE Issues". eWrestlingNews. Archived from the original on March 15, 2022. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  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. Archived from the original on April 21, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  43. ^ "Fandango, Credit Karma Settle FTC Charges that They Deceived Consumers By Failing to Securely Transmit Sensitive Personal Information". ftc.gov/. Federal Trade Commission. March 28, 2014. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  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. Archived from the original on July 16, 2021. Retrieved August 24, 2014.
  45. ^ Hickey, Walt (October 15, 2015). "Be Suspicious Of Online Movie Ratings, Especially Fandango's". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on May 3, 2019. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  46. ^ Avirgan, Jody (October 22, 2015). "Rating Subjective Experiences Is Hard, But Fandango Is Really Bad At It". FiveThirtyEight. Archived from the original on May 3, 2019. Retrieved May 3, 2019.
  47. ^ Machkovech, Sam (October 15, 2015). "FiveThirtyEight analysis finds inflated, rounded-up reviews at Fandango". Arstechnica. Archived from the original on April 22, 2017. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  48. ^ a b Plaugic, Lizzie (October 15, 2015). "You probably should ignore Fandango movie ratings". The Verge. Archived from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  49. ^ Novak, Matt (February 17, 2016). "Fandango Buys Rotten Tomatoes But Will Probably Ruin It". Gizmondo. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved March 17, 2016.
  50. ^ "Graphing Rotten Tomatoes' Political Bias". Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  51. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes' New Audience Rating System Is Even Worse". Screen Rant. March 3, 2019. Retrieved September 25, 2023.
  52. ^ "Stars Wars the Last Jedi Tickets Fandango". Forbes. Archived from the original on April 19, 2022. Retrieved December 20, 2017.
  53. ^ Lipman, Ashley (July 6, 2020). "Vudu is Now Officially Part of the Fandango Family". Xanjero. Archived from the original on July 8, 2020. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
  54. ^ "Fandango chooses Vudu as the way forward for its streaming business". The Verge. August 3, 2021. Archived from the original on June 4, 2023.
  55. ^ "FandangoNOW and Vudu merge into a new streaming service with titles to rent, buy or stream free". August 3, 2021. Archived from the original on April 7, 2022. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
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