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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Comcast to buy online ticket site Fandango

From Wire Reports The Spokesman-Review

Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable operator, announced Wednesday that it is buying the online movie ticketing service Fandango and starting a new Web site for watching TV and movies.

The new site, Fancast.com, will go live this summer and allow users to watch on-demand shows via television, the Internet and wireless devices.

Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, were not disclosed.

Comcast said the purchase will allow it to expand its online presence.

Comcast.net has more than 15 million unique visitors per month, and Fandango.com has 4 million to 5 million unique monthly visitors.

Philadelphia-based Comcast serves 24.2 million cable TV customers.

Target Corp. said on Wednesday it expects to increase its presence by 25 percent over the next five years to about 2,000 stores in the U.S., and will open its first outlets in Alaska and Hawaii.

Target Chairman and Chief Executive Robert Ulrich said in a presentation to analysts that the company remains focused on adding U.S. stores. The company has shown relatively little interest in adding stores in Canada or other locations outside the U.S.

That’s in contrast to retailers such as Best Buy Co. Inc., which has a fast-growing Canadian operation and is expanding into China, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has nearly a third of its 6,700 stores outside the U.S.

United Airlines added a $10 surcharge for passengers departing Los Angeles International Airport to offset a $10 million-a-year rent increase imposed by the city, the carrier said.

The surcharge goes into effect immediately.

Los Angeles World Airlines, the agency that runs LAX and other Los Angeles-owned airports, raised rents in December.

•BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. said its fiscal fourth-quarter profit soared as sales jumped 66 percent, according to preliminary results pending a restatement of past finances.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company also said it is now under a formal Securities and Exchange Commission investigation over its stock option granting practices. The company’s shares plunged nearly 7 percent in after-hours electronic trading.

For the quarter ended March 3, the company earned $187.9 million, or 99 cents per share, up from $18.4 million, or 10 cents per share, during the same period in the previous year.

Revenue was $930.4 million, up from $561.2 million.