Walmart's Vudu Orders Original Shows For Their AVOD Service

While the subscription video on demand (SVOD) services like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and all their smaller competitors get lots of attention, the growing advertising-supported video on demand (AVOD) world is also doing well. One of the surprising success stories is the Walmart-owned Vudu, which has developed its free, ad-supported Movies On Us service into a real destination for movie and television fans.

Vudu is still best known for its video on demand service, which offers around 150,000 movie and television titles for purchase or rental. But two years ago Vudu launched Movies On Us, which currently offers 3,125 movies free to watch with ads, along with 262 full seasons of TV shows.

Now the company is getting into original content, albeit on a limited basis. Vudo just announced a deal with MGM to create original series based on franchises from its extensive film and TV catalog. The shows will be exclusively licensed to Vudu for North America, and available on the Movies On Us service. The first MGM-produced short-form original series will debut in 2019 in the first quarter of 2019. 

Vudu has declined to release any viewership for its Movies On Us service, but it does have 25 million registered users. Although it's not clear how many of those users actively use Vudu or how many of them have tried the Movies On Us service.