Viacom’s NextMovie has acquired Film.com to boost the movie-related offerings of the Viacom Music & Logo Group, which includes MTV, VH1, CMT and other channels.
Since launching at the end of 2010, NextMovie has built an audience of more than 1 million unique visitors a month. Viacom is hoping that this deal will expand MTV’s film audience and lure more advertisers.
Both sites are devoted to film editorial content, from reviews to interviews to photos.
“Like music, movies is a category where we have good assets and is a really important advertising category for a place like Viacom,” Dermot McCormack, EVP of Digital Media for the Viacom Music & Logo Group, told TheWrap. “It’s important to keep adding more assets into our movie quill if you will.”
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“This is an asset we could take and use, with a renowned URL that has a lot of search juice to it,” he added.
McCormack underscored how MTV has rebuilt its music properties, expanding its reach and enhancing its brand. It has done so by creating a network of content on traditional television with multiple channels and extending that to digital platforms with initiatives, such as the digital-focused O Music Awards and Artists.MTV, a MySpace-like hub for artists online.
Movies are another area in which the Viacom Music & Logo Group has editorial authority, an interested audience and brand presence.
“This is an opportunity to do something editorially and built a strong, vibrant network in movies,” McCormack said. "Film.com is another way of acquiring a new asset to add to the existing network.”
Under the NextMovie banner, Film.com will quickly change as Viacom upgrades its content and improves functionality through something like show times.
Though the NextMovie the brand will subsume Film.com, McCormack sees the latter as having a broader audience. While NextMovie catches the younger MTV-type audience, Film.com can draw anyone form millennials to people over 45. Its web traffic is expected to dip initially after the acquisition, but its new owner sees no reason it can't build back up.
“We see a huge appetite from audiences around movies and there is an audience need for this type of content,” McCormack said.