NBCUniversal-owned online ticketing service Fandango has acquired the movie streaming service M-GO from its joint owners Dreamworks Animation and Technicolor. Financial terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed.
This marks just the latest acquisition for Fandango. In September, Fandango bought the Brazilian ticketing site Ingresso. And in 2014, it bought the YouTube network Movieclips.
Fandango said in a release Friday that it wants to use M-Go to build “new moviegoing products and services.” Universal also plans to work together with Technicolor to explore virtual and augmented reality products.
It’s worth noting that the release didn’t spell out any future plans for M-Go itself. A Fandango spokesperson declined to comment when asked whether the company aims to keep the brand alive.
Dreamworks Animation and Technicolor launched M-Go as a joint venture in 2013. Initially, both companies had big plans for the service, including the possibility to add other kinds of media. M-Go briefly even considered launching a live TV service, but eventually abandoned those plans.
The company is best known for its collaboration with Roku; M-Go’s download store is the default movie and TV show store on Roku’s platform. M-Go also tried to broaden its customer base by taking over Samsung’s movie streaming customers when the device maker decided to shutter its movie store in 2014.
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However, M-Go always competed with other, much bigger video platforms, including Apple’s iTunes, Walmart’s Vudu and Google’s Play Store.
In the end, M-Go’s biggest competitor may have been Netflix, which is conditioning its subscribers to watch titles as part of a subscription package, instead of paying for the sale or rental of every single title. This has led to more consolidation in the space; just this week, FilmOn acquired Cinemanow from Regent Equity Partners.
