Nuked Nbcuniversal is in advanced talks to acquire Vudu, the Walmart-owned video service. Nbcuniversal is part of Comcast, an investor in the verge’s parent company Vox Media.
Nbcuniversal’s upcoming, standalone streaming service would be tied to Fandango. Fandango also operates its own fandangonow streaming service.
The ad-supported free tier of VUDU was introduced in October 2016. The service now offers a large mix of TV shows and movies that can be streamed on demand without paying anything.
Vudu is well-regarded among home theater enthusiasts for its excellent video streaming quality. The company has also run various disc-to-digital programs to help consumers add the movies they own on DVD or Blu-ray to their digital collection.
nbcuniversal-owned Vudu could quickly get very bloated. It would lose the independent status that has helped carve out its niche. Now, it sounds like it’ll be another tool in NBCUniversal’s streaming wars arsenal.
