It's All A Blur

Streaming/Live Streaming, News/Fake News, On-line/Pay-Per-View, WiFi/Box Top, Cell/iPad, PC/Game Console - all things digital are getting to be one huge out-of-control blur for the user/consumer.

Let's take one example - Fandango, the movie ticketing service. Fandango has just entered the video-on-demand movie streaming game but has decided that streaming movies through the use of Microsoft X-Box and Android TV platforms are the way to go. Why?  Well, Fandango believes that they will instantly have over 100 million installed devices from which their new streaming service can be accessed. Whether this is a viable strategy for entering the home entertainment sector is questionable.

Fandango, owned by Comcast's NBC/Universal, has the lofty goal of expanding out of its movie ticketing business and grabbing a vast number of gamers who want to use their console for movie watching. This is one hard nut to crack as it will be going up against the likes of: Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Walmart Vudu, Roku, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and a score of lessor known content streamers.

According to Fandango execs, however, their secret sauce is the bundling of movie ticketing and home entertainment. For example, next month, subscribers who purchase or rent the movie 'The Secret Life of Pets' via X-Box will receive a free child's movie ticket to Illumination Entertainment's next feature film, 'Sing', scheduled for cinema release on December 21st.  This scheme is another one of these, 'if you do this and that you can do this and that' - these schemes rarely work.

CMG believes Fandango's strategy into home entertainment is flawed and just another nut in the fruitcake of digital entertainment, which is so fragmented and complex that people have come to pick one or two platforms and are sticking with them.  Everytime a new player enters the fray with a new formula that is going to shake-up the industry, they fall flat. My gut is that Fandango will get some subscribers but their ploy will not become the panacea Comcast and Microsoft envision.