Comcast to acquire movie tickets site Fandango

Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S., said Wednesday it will buy movie tickets site Fandango as part of a new online entertainment business it plans to launch.

Financial terms of the deal were not provided.

Comcast, which has some 24.2 million cable TV customers and 11.5 million high-speed Internet customers, plans to use the Fandango site to build a new entertainment site called Fancast.com. The new site, launching this summer, will enable people to search for their favorite TV shows, movies and actors. They will also have access to video content and will be able to see where various shows and movies can be viewed via television, video-on-demand or online, among other places.

Comcast already has an Internet presence, Comcast.net, which is now a top 10 site with more than 2.5 billion page views, according to the company. Comcast said that more than 80 million videos are seen and 15 million unique visitors come to the site every month.

The company has been adding specialized entertainment content to its Internet properties for a while. In November, it launched the public beta of Ziddio, a user-generated video portal. Last year, it also launched FearNet, a site targeted at horror movie fans. The site offers a slew of scary movies and other content from Sony and Lions Gate on the Internet, as well as through its video-on-demand service.

Fandango, which millions of people use every month to buy movie tickets, will be an important part of the new Fancast.com site, Comcast said.

"Fandango is one of the strongest entertainment brands online as well as a dynamic, profitable business with a superb management team and rapidly growing advertising revenue," Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media, said in a statement.

Fandango, which will remain based in Los Angeles, will continue to be led by CEO Chuck Davis.