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Wheeling and Dealing: Comcast Takes Fandango and Heads for Fancast, While HBO and Universal Ink Distribution Deal
http://firefox.org/news/articles/266/1/Wheeling-and-Dealing-Comcast-Takes-Fandango-and-Heads-for-Fancast-While-HBO-and-Universal-Ink-Distribution-Deal/Page1.html
Melissa Wilson
 
By Melissa Wilson
Published on 04/11/2007
 
When the big moneymakers talk to each other, it's good to take a listen ...

$200 Million for Fandango, Over $1 Billion for HBO and Universal
When the big moneymakers talk to each other, it's good to take a listen. According to the Hollywood Reporter, cable giant Comcast has just completed the purchase of Fandango, a hugely popular movie ticket venue and information site. This is anticipation of a summer launch for Comcast's new site Fancast, which will link movie ticket sales with movie information with IMDB-style cast information with upcoming showtimes for series and movies featuring those stars with DVR technology to record them. If that seems ambitious and a little overwhelming, it is. Comcast wants to position Fancast as the ultimate guide in finding whom you want to see when you want to see them (a functionality that IMDB has been unrolling for a while now, with great success). Plus, they'll sell tickets.

In other smoke-filled rooms, HBO and Universal have inked a deal for the home broadcasting network to continue carrying Universal releases into the next decade, according to Variety. HBO is also in the works to sign new deals with Fox, Warner Bros. and New Line, hoping to solidify its long-standing reputation for distributing major motion pictures on the small screen. This includes distribution via pay-per-view and online downloads of films (for a fee of course) from the HBO website. As the recent Starz lawsuit against Disney has indicated, this could have a cooling effect on legal downloads from other sources, as HBO would have the primary rights to the films it options well into the future.