|
Walmart has been looking to prop up Vudu's monthly viewership
that remains well below that of competitors like Netflix Inc <NFLX.O>
and Hulu LLC, which is controlled by Walt Disney Co <DIS.N>,
Comcast Corp <CMCSA.O> and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc <FOXA.O>.
Media outlets had reported the Bentonville, Arkansas-based
company was looking to launch a subscription streaming video
service to rival that of Netflix and make a foray into producing
TV shows to attract customers.
Walmart is not planning such a move, company sources have told
Reuters. The retailer continues, however, to look for options to
boost its video-on-demand business and offer programs that
target customers who live outside of big cities.
Walmart and MGM will make the announcement at the NewFronts
conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday. It will include the name
of the first production under the partnership, which Walmart
will license from MGM.
"Under this partnership, MGM will create exclusive content based
on their extensive library of iconic IP (intellectual property),
and that content will premiere exclusively on the Vudu
platform," Walmart spokesman Justin Rushing told Reuters.
The focus will be on family-friendly content that Walmart
customers prefer, Rushing said.
The financial deals of the deal were not disclosed.
Licensing content is a cost-effective strategy at a time when
producing original content has become a costly venture. As of
July, Netflix said it was spending $8 billion a year on original
and acquired content. Amazon.com Inc's <AMZN.O> programming
budget for Prime Video was more than $4 billion, while U.S.
broadcaster HBO, owned by AT&T Inc <T.N>, said it would spend
$2.7 billion this year.
Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010 to safeguard against declining
in-store sales of DVDs. Walmart bet that customers would
continue to buy and rent movies and move their titles to a
digital library, which Vudu would create and maintain for
viewers.
But the video site has not posed a significant challenge to
rivals that dominate the segment even though it is pre-loaded or
can be downloaded to millions of smart televisions and
video-game consoles.
Vudu offers 150,000 titles to buy or rent, while its free,
ad-supported streaming service, called Movies On Us, includes
5,000 movies and TV shows.
There are currently more than 200 video services that bypass
cable providers and stream content directly to a TV, laptop,
phone or game console. That is up from 68 five years ago,
according to market researcher Parks Associates.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in New York; Editing by Peter Cooney)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
|
