Sunnyvale, California — In an attempt to rebuild its lost empire through several different ways, Yahoo holds one of the dazzling media properties, that is its Movie section, which includes showtimes, reviews, and trailers. In order to market it, the company has inked a deal with Fandango, one of the most prominent movie ticket sellers, in another example of the company’s shift towards focusing on digital media.
Fandango currently offers ticket purchasing for over 20,000 screens across the United States. Now, the latest alliance further gives Fandango, the top digital movie-ticket purchasing destination in the U.S., access to a Yahoo Movies base of 30 million unique users a month.
The Fandango logo can already be seen (in the image above) when buying tickets through Yahoo! Movies. With the latest agreement in place, Yahoo! users will also be favored with Fandango showtimes and ticketing opportunities on their mobile devices and tablets as well.
“Moviegoers on Yahoo! will now have access to Fandango’s many innovations, including the paperless Mobile Ticket program and reserved seating at a growing number of locations,” said Rick Butler, Executive vice President and General Manager of Fandango. “We are excited about this relationship with Yahoo!, which helps deliver consumer benefits to an even broader audience, giving cinemagoers more convenient options to buy tickets and find up-to-the-minute movie information anywhere, anytime.”
Kenneth Fuchs, VP of the Yahoo! Media Network had this to say about the partnership:
Adding Fandango as our ticketing companion allows us to bring our 30 million users even more access to their favorite films. Fandango will enrich our current theater reach and provide a best in class online and mobile solution to movie ticketing.
Fandango recently acknowledged as the best-selling January and February in the company’s nearly-12-year history. New ticketing agreements with Regency Theatres and AMC Theatres have expanded Fandango’s network of movie theatres to nearly 20,000 screens.
However, this alliance makes complete sense since most users who are reading reviews or watching movie trailers are in a buy-mode, but were not presented with the option until now. For Fandango, Yahoo! could help them become the biggest movie ticket reseller online.
Nevertheless, that basically equals to Yahoo Movies becoming a more well-rounded platform when it comes to wrapping up Hollywood entertainment. Yahoo Movies already offers plenty of content, including movie news, trailers, and box office results. The film hub also often has exclusive video content, live event streams (i.e. the Oscars and other red carpet events) and promotions surrounding certain franchises, which could be seen most recently with all of the hype surrounding The Hunger Games.
As a matter of fact, endorsing a deal with Fandango is definitely a major step forward for Yahoo’s digital media and entertainment aspirations.