Fandango to Offer Movie Ticket Phone Sales

Fandango, an online movie ticket service owned by seven of the eleven major movie theater chains, said it will introduce a service in May that allows users to buy tickets over the phone. Users will be charged a 75-cent service fee. Santa Monica-based Fandango, which was formed last March, entered a partnership with Tellme Networks Inc., to offer the 1-800 phone ticketing service. The theater chains involved with Fandango are Loews Cineplex Entertainment Corp., Regal Cinemas Inc., Cinemark Theatres, GC Cos.’ General Cinema Theatres, Edwards Theatres, Century Theatres and Carmike Cinemas Inc. The companies are hoping to generate additional revenue from the new service by increasing ticket sales and also by selling advertising and movie-related merchandise. Fandango said it expects to generate revenue from service fees as well as advertising and through the sale of movie-related products. Fandango, which competes with MovieTickets.com and AOL Time Warner Inc.’s AOL Moviefone, is in about 200 theaters and expects to be in about 5,000 screens by year’s end.