Walmart is set to announce a partnership with MGM to produce original content for the big box store’s Vudu transactional platform, according to Reuters.
The news service said Walmart will make the announcement Wednesday during a presentation at the Newfronts West event in Los Angeles.
The "family-friendly" content will be focused to Walmart’s consumer base—that is, folks not living in major cities. The report didn’t specify what Walmart will be paying for the content. But it did say the shows will reside within Vudu’s Movies on Us sub-platform, the free-to-consumer, advertising video on demand (AVOD) portion of Vudu that includes mostly archival movie titles.
“Under this partnership, MGM will create exclusive content based on their extensive library of iconic IP (intellectual property), and that content will premiere exclusively on the Vudu platform,” Walmart spokesman Justin Rushing told Reuters.
Related: SpotX Gets Programmatic Pole Position at Vudu
Walmart is reportedly shelving a plan to compete with Netflix, Amazon and Hulu in subscription video on demand.
Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010 as a hedge against declining DVD and Blu-ray sales. The platform specializes in sales and rentals of digital movies and TV shows—a competitive market, with Apples iTunes Store, Amazon, Comcast and others in the mix.
Walmart doesn’t break out financials for Vudu.
