Fandango acquires Rotten Tomatoes, Flixster

[GiantCALBears]

Surprised no one posted a thread on this, pretty important story among the movie biz.

 

http://bit.ly/1Xy82g6 

 

How will this affect the industry & box office guys? These are clearly the go to ratings sites (Flixster on mobile), a conflict of interest becomes very apparent especially when Fandango's rating system skews heavily towards the positive (clearly to boost the chances of ticket sales). Just to clarify the companies involved here Fandango is owned by NBC Universal (Comcast) & they are buying it from Warner Bros (who will maintain a stake in the combined group).

[Plain Old Tele]

Aren't Fandango's ratings simply fan-driven? (Much like IMDB or RT's forums?) I imagine they'll keep both areas somewhat distinct but incorporate links between the two -- if you're checking Fandango for showtimes, for example, clicking on a movie title takes to the RT page with the aggregate critic reviews. Or, on the RT page, click on movie details and you get showtimes in your area.

[GiantCALBears]

3 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

Aren't Fandango's ratings simply fan-driven? (Much like IMDB or RT's forums?) I imagine they'll keep both areas somewhat distinct but incorporate links between the two -- if you're checking Fandango for showtimes, for example, clicking on a movie title takes to the RT page with the aggregate critic reviews. Or, on the RT page, click on movie details and you get showtimes in your area.

 

538 has some interesting insight on how the system works/why social media is so negative on this deal. Frankly I am curious how the positives outweigh them.

 

http://53eig.ht/1jD9wqC

[Plain Old Tele]

Actually, don't those negatives make acquiring RT the perfect solution? Fandango can keep their fan reviews or whatever they are as Fandango Fan Reviews (or something). But integrating aggregated real critic's reviews addresses the very issues that 538 talks about. Or, if Fandango wants, they can ditch their own system and simply re-brand the RT fan score as their own. But either way, the critic reviews are separate.

[GiantCALBears]

6 minutes ago, Telemachos said:

Actually, don't those negatives make acquiring RT the perfect solution? Fandango can keep their fan reviews or whatever they are as Fandango Fan Reviews (or something). But integrating aggregated real critic's reviews addresses the very issues that 538 talks about. Or, if Fandango wants, they can ditch their own system and simply re-brand the RT fan score as their own. But either way, the critic reviews are separate.

The potential synergies between the 2 and formatting/overlap will give us more insight. Hopefully they don't change RT much from what it already is. Buying tickets directly from the site actually seems like a cool potential feature.

[Plain Old Tele]

2 minutes ago, GiantCALBears said:

The potential synergies between the 2 and formatting/overlap will give us more insight. Hopefully they don't change RT much from what it already is. Buying tickets directly from the site actually seems like a cool potential feature.

 

Yeah, I suppose I'm taking the optimistic view, but IMO they'll do a facelift on either/both sides to give them the same look & branding... then most of the work is integrating the two databases and providing links between the pertinent data. Done right, it should be pretty slick and helpful.

 

Of course, they could colossally fuck it up by replacing what each site does best with the others' worst.

[Water Bottle]

I don't think they'll affect the critic rating system. Remember, RottenTomatoes has competition (Metacritic) and a reputation to uphold. If it starts to get criticism that it's owner is influencing the RT score to be more positive then you'll see backlash especially since it's very easy for people to see whether or not a film deserves to be fresh or not. It's just a culmination of reviews after all and while you can agree/disagree if a review is positive or not, not enough to the point where a movie's rating should change significantly.