NBC Universal has added another  streaming service to it. Fandango, which is owned by Comcast, has purchased digital movie retailer and streaming service Vudu from Walmart for an undisclosed amount. Walmart bought Vudu over a decade ago, but the service, which allows customers to either buy or rent movies and TV shows, still lags far behind the monthly viewership numbers that competitors Netflix Inc and Hulu pull in.

 Vudu is currently available on more than 100 million living room devices, according to Walmart, and the mobile app has more than 14 million downloads.

The representative of Vudu told the Verge that  the primary goal of the purchase is to scale the company’s presence in the transactional space — meaning movies that people can buy and rent the second they’re available without a subscription. Fandango also currently operates its own digital marketplace, FandangoNOW, that had 60 million monthly visitors and contained more than 100,000 movies and TV shows as of December 2019.

Fandango is trying to scale in order to compete with Amazon and Apple’s iTunes, not subscription and ad-supported streaming services like Netflix or Tubi. Fandango wants to grow its streaming business in scale to reflect its current size as a ticket retailer — Vudu could be key to that goal. Vudu has a large, built-in audience and a dedicated network of home video enthusiasts.

Disney, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. are just some of the studios that have decided to shorten or completely forgo the theatrical window for a number of their films now that movie theaters across the country are shut down.

Despite Vudu having a built-in ad-supported streaming service for some of its titles, neither Vudu nor FandangoNOW are seen as competitors to NBC Universal’s new crown jewel in the streaming market, Peacock. Vudu and FandangoNOW are designed to complement Peacock, with all three remaining separate entities. Vudu and FandangoNOW will live within NBC Universal’s digital network, where the focus remains on rentals and purchases of newly released films.

Vudu, which also offers a free ad-supported streaming option, said that it will not be shutting down and will still operate separately from the FandangoNow pay-per-view service.

Source- The Verge